Brandberries’ “Creatives to Watch” is our annual feature spotlighting creatives making a mark in the Middle East and Africa. The list recognizes the finest creative calibers in the region. The theme this year is “The Eccentrics” – reflecting on the trailblazing achievements these creatives have made through their brands and agencies.
- Ahmed Hafez Younis (AKA Fizo): Head of Creative Shop, Facebook MENA
It was back in 1995 when Ahmed Hafez Younis – AKA Fizo – was hanging from the ceiling of some rich folks’ house, painting fake acrylic clouds, when he suddenly realized that “Trompe-l’œil” never fooled anyone.
With this eye-opening lesson in mind, Fizo nailed a BA in Art Direction from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo to his wall, and jumped right on the roller coaster that is the Creative industry.
From local agencies to heavy weight ones, Fizo has left his mark on some of the Middle East’s biggest names. He co-founded the internationally-acclaimed FC studio, joined Cairo Elephant – the 1st (and by far the coolest) creative hub/independent agency in Egypt, and became a key pillar in FP7 Cairo/McANN’s world group. All the while, he managed to orchestrate a plethora of award-winning campaigns for the likes of Coca-Cola, Nestle, Mini Cooper, Fanta, McDonald’s and Orange.
In 2017, Fizo made a huge career shift by joining the tech giant Facebook as head of the Creative Shop for Middle East and North Africa.
His extensive collection of work has been awarded by every major awards organization recently crowned with a beautiful Grand Prix in the LIA, as well as a Gold Lion in Cyber. Previous wins include Cannes Lions, D&AD, Andy’s, The One Show, CLIO, MENA Effies, Crystals, and Dubai Lynx.
2. Ali Rez: Regional Creative Director, BBDO Middle East and Pakistan
Ranked amongst the Top 15 Creative Directors in the world by The Directory, Rez has won more than 150 international awards in his career, including Gold Cannes Lions, Gold Clios, Gold Effie, D&AD pencils, Grand Prix Dubai Lynx and the United Nations Peace award.
Rez spent most of his career in the U.S., where he worked for more than a decade on global brands such as ChevronTexaco, HP, 7Up, Dr Pepper, Adobe, and the band INXS.
Having worked in 6 different countries on 4 continents, Rez is now based in Dubai, from where he has led BBDO Pakistan to be named Campaign’s Agency of the Year twice in a row, and contributed to BBDO Worldwide being named the Network of the Year at Cannes Lions 2017, Effies 2017, and Dubai Lynx 2017.
Rez has sat on esteemed jury panels such as Clios, Effies, AdStars and Spikes Asia. He has spoken at Tedx, exhibited at major museums such as Tate UK, and lectured on political art at Oxford University and the London School of Economics.
Ali focuses on building insightful creative strategies and executions leading to work that is effective because it is intelligent, entertaining and original. In the words of Helmut Krone, he is “only interested in the new.”
3. Amr Fawzy: Managing and Creative Director, Lunar Jetman
Nucleus to Lunar Jetman / ljhatch—Amr, a graduate of engineering—works to fuse art, math, science and theory to create unorthodox concepts. 
4. Ayman Anwar: Senior Art Director, Publicis Egypt
Ayman joined Marcom advertising agency in January 2004, while still attending his final year studying Graphic Design and Animation in the faculty of Fine Arts.
For seven years, Ayman had been working with clients such Mercedes, BMW, Brilliance, Qatar Telecom, New Giza, Emaar, and Sodic. And as the years of experience went by, Ayman managed to grow his skills as an Art Director, moving to a Digital agency: “Connect ads” in 2011; the year of the Egyptian revolution.
Needless to say, 2011 was a very challenging year in the market of which the aftermath resided in the advertising field for many following years.
Ayman spent one year in Connect ads; working with Coca Cola, Pepsi, Chevrolet, and other brands to create activation and apps. He then moved to Point of View for another year, and began working with Yemeni clients in Egypt. It was not long before the revolution of Yemen came about when Ayman had to leave Point of View advertising and Joined FP7 Cairo (which is part of McCann Worldwide) in 2013 to start his journey as an Art Director working on a large, and diverse portfolio including multinational brands such as Coca Cola, McDonalds, GM motors, Palm Hills, Edita, Nestle, Juhayna, and Labanita.
A while later, Ayman was promoted to Senior Art Director, and spent one year before he became the Head of Design and Branding at FP7 Cairo, where he got the opportunity and the honor to re-brand Al Azhar Al Sharif entity.
Ayman then moved to Publicis Worldwide in April 2017, and still remains part of its team.
5. Bruno Bomediano: Executive Creative Director, Horizon FCB Dubai
Bruno, a dedicated Executive Creative Director comes with over 18 years of Advertising experience. He has worked on some of the finest brands across sectors at multinational agencies back in Brazil. It is his accurate understanding of client needs along with consumer mindsets that equips him with the confidence to provide appropriate strategic solutions.
He gages human behavior to create innovative solutions that translate into ideas to help brands achieve their goals. Bruno has bagged a number of prestigious international advertising awards including the most coveted, the Cannes Lions Grand Prix and a few Golds. Not just that, but it is his knowledge of the local market and culture that has helped him win Gold, Silver and Grand Prix at Dubai Lynx as well as Effies.
6. Dalia Fawaz: Associate Creative Director, Siegel + Gale Dubai
Dalia is associate creative director at global brand strategy, design and experience firm, Siegel+Gale, based in the Dubai office where she leads the design practice.
With more than 18 years experience in branding and communication design, Dalia has helped lead effective creative solutions on some of the biggest companies in the region, including Gulf International Bank, Alshaya Group, Saudi Aramco, Qtel, du Telecom, Dnata Travel, The Alef Residences, Kochi Metro, DP World, King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture and Fit Republik.
With a strong passion for brands, she believes in creating identities that challenge design convention to create impactful brand solutions that effect change for the client whilst delivering a localized customer experience.
A graduate of the American University of Beirut and an RCA alumnus, Dalia values the future of design and young designers and has had the privilege of teaching at many universities across the region.
7. Farah Gamal: Senior Designer, Superunion Middle East
Farah is an Egyptian designer born and raised in Dubai. She earned a degree in Visual communication from the American University in Dubai, with a concentration in graphic design. Farah joined superunion 5 years ago working her way up to a senior designer, leading a team of 5. Since joining Superunion, she has been involved in a number of diverse branding projects for clients including: Etisalat, Vodafone, Jazeera airways, QNB, STC, & Dulsco.
Growing up in a multi cultured environment, she grew a passion for exploring peoples’ backgrounds to better understand their views, attitudes & behavior in order to fully understand and tackle any branding project. She believes that great brands are not just about designing a beautiful logo — but building compelling and engaging brand experiences. Being a bilingual designer, her main focus is building multicultural brands and designing creative solutions for Arabic and English projects that are implemented across the region. Not just interested in design for today and tomorrow, she also loves history of design. When back in Alexandria, she is always fascinated by the generations of old shops and businesses, where even the smallest store has its own dignity and sense of pride.
Farah remains creatively active, far beyond the job; she is regularly invited by AUD, her alma mater, to serve as a guest juror, part of an A-list panel, offering students close feedback and share insights from the industry.
8. Farida Natour: Design Director, Brand Lounge
Farida Natour, an award-winning branding and graphic design professional with 15 years of progressive experience across the Middle East region. She possesses a unique blend of expertise gained from leading branding initiatives from both the client and consultancy perspectives.
Currently, Farida serves as the Design Director of Brand lounge, a strategy-led, design & brand consultancy where she is responsible for the creation, management, and execution of comprehensive brand designs, consumer packaging, branded environments, and digital branding that have had a major impact on the growth of many companies such as Rakez, Nawah, MedPharma, Tabreed, Etihad Reit, Avivo Group and many more. Designs created under her supervision have been recognized under the Award for Brand Excellence in 2015 – Pharmaceutical & Bio Technology Sector, MedPharma.
Farida completed her master degree in Brand Design at IED in Italy after completing her bachelors’ in graphic design, and business marketing from the Lebanese American University.
9. Fernando Sagastume: Design Director, Interbrand Madrid
With over 15 years in the field of design, Fernando is a branding specialist with extensive experience in the creation, development and implementation of 360º programs.
His work is based on the idea that the brand is a living entity and must be taken care of every day, down to the last detail, in all its touch points. He has led global branding programs for companies in different industries such as finance, telecommunications, distribution and mass consumption or energy, among others.
Previously, Fernando worked as Design Director for Lambie-Nairn and as Designer for The Brand Union. He holds a degree in Graphic Design from the Istituto Europeo di Design.
10. Gary O’Kelly: Creative Director, Brash Brands
Gary O’Kelly was born in the UK and studied Design at Bath Spa University College, where he received his BA with Honors in 2004. He worked at Turquoise in London until 2007 as Middleweight Designer, where he worked on brands such as Du and STC as well as channel brands MBC and TV3 in Ireland. He joined Brash in Dubai at the end of 2007 and has been responsible for creating some of the regions most recognized work.
Gary is passionate about creating brands that are beautiful and meaningful. His work stretches across multiple sectors such as real estate, telecoms, government, infrastructure, environment, finance, retail and hospitality. Gary can also pull from a tapestry of international experience, as he has worked on brands across the globe, including UK, Australia, USA, South Africa, India, China, Malaysia, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Bahrain and UAE.
As the Creative Director at Brash, Gary drives creative experiences, leading an energetic, dynamic team that is well versed in bringing ideas and strategic thinking to life. His passion for brands continue to create award winning work. Projects such as Burj Khalifa, Emaar, Etihad Rail, dnata, Averda, Gama Aviation, Kochi Metro and more recently ENOC and Dubai Police rebrands.
11. Hatem El Awa: Associate Creative Director, Kijami
After 9 years of experience in the Advertising industry, Hatem is settled for Kijamii tribe as an Associate creative director coming from FCB, after his long journey in a bunch of top multinational agencies like JWT, DDB and Drive Dentsu working on clients like Vodafone, Nestle, Uniliver, OSN, Netflix, Red Bull, Huawei, Microsoft mobiles, Danone, Juhayna, Americana, Egypt Foods, Mo’men, Frico, PepsiCo, CIB, HSBC, ABK and a lot of other accounts, the Dubai Lynx and African Crystal former winner developed to his current title from a copywriting career and he is recently becoming a director.
12. Haytham Zoghby: Executive Creative Director, OMD Dubai
Haytham is the first senior creative talent in the MENA region to move from the creative to the media agency side. At OMD, Haytham leads the creative and content disciplines. With his creative background and alongside the various Omnicom Media Group disciplines, he collaborates at the intersection of human insights, data, ideas and technology. His core role consists of leading ideation and building communication strategies that bring purposeful innovation and business value to every brand. His talented creative teams are based in Dubai and Beirut and perform to further expand OMD’s integrated product across online and offline platforms.
Previous to that, Haytham worked for twelve and a half years with Leo Burnett MENA, where he handled and led the creative development of integrated communication, including film, digital, branding, retail and design for a wide range of portfolios or brands across two GCC markets.
13. Jimmy Kmeid: Design Director, FITCH Dubai
As Design Director at FITCH Dubai, Jimmy Kmeid leads a team of creatives on a day-to-day basis delivering brand solutions across the MENA region.
Having been in the creative industry for more than fifteen years, Jimmy has gained extensive background knowledge and understanding of design and the important role it plays when applied to brands and businesses.
He takes a special interest in cross-cultural design, developing creative solutions that blend global and local cultures into unique brand experiences. In his twelve years at FITCH, Jimmy has worked across different studios in the FITCH network including London and Delhi. He has been involved in developing and designing brands strategically and creatively for clients like Vodafone, Nestlé, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Indigo Hotel, Jumeirah, Chalhoub Group, Qatar Foundation, Qatar Football Association and Aljazera Markets.
Projects he has worked on have received recognition at awards across the region and globally, including Cannes Lions, Design Week Awards, Dubai Lynx, and Transform Awards MENA for best overall visual identity.
14. Kalpesh Patankar: Executive Creative Director, Young & Rubicam MENA
Kalpesh Patankar joined Saatchi & Saatchi Mumbai in June 2000 and within a short span was ranked No.1 creative in India by Campaign Brief Asia. After spending a few years in Malaysia and Singapore with McCann and Ogilvy, he moved to Middle East and has been instrumental in turning the creative spotlight in the region and brought its first double Cannes Gold Lions and helped Y&R Dubai to be most awarded MENA agency for a decade.
Today at Y&R MENA he heads the creative department. From Harvey Nichols and Land Rover to Coca-Cola, Kal’s work has been recognized by top international award shows. He has served on several award juries including Cannes Lions, D&AD, CLIO, LIA, One Show, ADC, Loeries, Cristal and Adfest, among others.
He is also appointed as a member of Y&R’s Global Creative Board and Executive Council.
15. Kareem Abou Gamrah: Co-founder and Managing Director, Peace Cake Productions
Kareem loves challenges, three years working for Google while finishing his bachelors degree. Moving to Dubai working on developing a start up an accelerator there. Competing in international start up competitions and back to Cairo to found Peace Cake with his partners – A creative agency that’s been taking the industry by storm. When he’s not on the weird side of the internet Kareem is the Managing Director of Peace Cake his goal is to move the company to a position where people are able to spot their work, partially inspired of course by the weird side of the internet. Being able to be unique in the way they approach creative obstacles and messaging.
A firm believer in challenging norms, Kareem and his team believes that audiences want to be engaged with and not spoon fed. Every brief is an opportunity and every insight is an opportunity to speak to our audience in a new way. Rarely ever the easy way.
16. Karim Abou Rizk: Partner and Creative Director, Wondereight
Karim Abou Rizk graduated from LAU in 2005 with a BS in Graphic Design. His career took off when he was still a student working at Pikasso – AGEV where he shaped his technical skills, working on internal and external signage systems. He then flew to Qatar to take on the position of Art Director at renowned advertising agency Grey Worldwide. He gained a lot of experience working on 360 campaigns for Doha Asian Games and Qatar Telecom.
His heart, though, was always set on coming back to Beirut. Nowadays, he’s a co-partner at WonderEight, and knows exactly what he wants in life: great food and greater moments. No wonder he turned his hobbies into work and started a food photography career alongside his branding and design profession.
When he’s not creating the most famous restaurant brands in Beirut, he combines food with design in a series of workshops he conducts at WonderEight called “Visual Alphabet”.
17. Karim Ayesh: Creative Director, FP7/CAI
Karim is an international award winning creative director working in FP7 Cairo.
When he started his career, he wanted to work as a creative but could not find a way into the advertising field except as an account handler. Determined to reach his dream, he started working as account executive but quickly changed to creative since this was his passion from day 1.
Karim has been working as a creative in the feild for 9 years now, He is behind some of the most memorable campaigns for many local and international brands such as Etisalat, vodafone, nestle, national bank of Egypt, world youth forum, midea, and many more. Karim strongly believes that in this job passion and teamwork is as important as talent.
18. Mounir Harfouche: Chief Executive Officer and Chief Creative Officer, MullenLowe Dubai
With more than 25 years of creative, marketing communications and strategic consulting experience, Mounir, 42 years old, as regional CEO for MullenLowe MENA personally directs the agency across 4 offices in creating and implementing award-winning projects that have consistently met and surpassed client objectives.
He is globally recognized for creative and strategic transformational programs and creative integration success. Mounir graduated from ALBA “Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts” with a diploma of High Studies in Advertising. He started his Creative career at the age of 19 with BBDO then moved to Saatchi & Saatchi ME for 6 years before moving to Grey Worldwide as a Regional Creative Director for another 6 years. In 2006, Mounir was offered the position to build Lowe Worldwide in the region in the capacity of MD and Regional ECD. He then quickly claimed the position of CEO, initially serving Real Estate, FMCG brands, technology, and professional service organizations. Today, the agency is known for being one of the largest and most progressive agencies within the region.
19. Mustafa El Sherif: Creative Director, TNA/DDB
After graduating in 2007 with a BA in Marketing and international business Mostafa followed his passion for storytelling and joined the industry as a copywriter. For the past 10 years he joined forces with leading international agencies including TNA/DDB Egypt, JWT, Saatchi&Saatchi, and BBDO. Currently Mostafa serves as the Creative Director at TNA/DDB. So far he has worked on a wide variety of local and global brands such as Vodafone, Etisalat, Mercedes, Hyundai, Careem (Ride hailing app), Red Bull, Cadbury, Nestle, National Bank of Egypt, P&G, Shell, and many more.
Along the way, his work has been recognised at Dubai Lynx, Effies, Crystals and he was member of the grand jury for New York festivals advertising awards and Ad Stars South Korean festival. Other than being an advertiser Mostafa is an actor, writer, photographer, voice over artist, bad singer, director, retired tennis commentator and a full-time movie fanatic.
20. Nathalie Fallaha: Founder, Vit-e Branding
Nathalie Fallaha is the founder and catalyst behind vit-e branding & digital agency (www.vit-e.com) and alephya (www.alephya.com). She studied graphic design at the American University of Beirut; after receiving her bachelor of Graphic Design in 1997, she moved to Central Saint Martins in the UK to pursue her Masters in Communication Design.
Since 2009, Noel has led Bellwether’s multidisciplinary design team in creating everything from brand visual identities, visual systems, experience design, product & service design, to environments and new product concepts.
A seasoned, well-respected design innovator, Noel has helped create, transform and build both local and international brands.
Noel has worked across almost every industry vertical and has directly contributed to global, pan-regional and national brand communications programs for, UAE Ministry of Cabinet Affairs – Prime Ministers Office, Toyota, STC (Saudi Telecommunications Company), Careem, Injazat, Omantel, du, VOX Cinemas, KIPIC (Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company), Jumeirah, NCB (National Commercial Bank of KSA), Landrover, BMW, Bank Al Bilad, GO Malta, Albatha Group, National Bank Of Oman, Burj Al Arab and many more.
22. Olly Robinson: Executive Creative Director, FP7 MENA
Olly is one of just a very small handful of strategically minded ECDs who have worked on and won awards across all marketing channels (TV, Press / Poster, PR, Digital, Viral, Social).
Over the last 22 years he has worked for some of the most effective and creative agencies in the world: McCann Dubai, JWT London, Dare London, Agency.com, BMP DDB Needham and D’Arcy Massius Benton and Bowles. This ATL /Online split is still rare, even in this day and age and his wholly cross-channel experience gives him the ability to deliver truly integrated solutions for any and every marketing challenge. Olly’s work has won awards from the Cannes Lions Festival, Creative Circle, D&AD, Campaign BIG, Effie’s, Webby’s, Most Contagious, FAB, Dubai Lynx Festival and several others.
In his role working at the top of FP7’s creative department he has helped steer the agency to the enviable position of the “World’s Most Effective Agency” (Global Effie’s 2016), as well as helping FP7 win The MENA Effies Most Effective Agency and Network, 5 years in a row.
23. Pascale Sfeir: Senior Designer, Tag Brands
Pascale Sfeir is a Senior Graphic Designer at Tagbrands, a branding agency based in Beirut – Lebanon. Pascale holds a BA and MA for Graphic Design from the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK).
After graduation, Pascale launched her career in Beirut, diversifying her experience between branding and advertising, where most recently she held the position of a Senior Art Director at TAGBRANDS.
Throughout her past 12 years of experience, Pascale served clients from a wide spectrum of sectors and industries, including; banking, hospitality, food and beverage, consumer products and energy, such as National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), Qatar National bank (QNB), Saradar Bank, Lusail City, Saudi Commission for Tourism & National Heritage (SCTH), Women in Front, and Phoenicia Hotel. The geographic footprint of her clients span many different countries in the Middle East, in addition to Lebanon of course, such as KSA, UAE and Qatar among others.
Additionally, Pascale has worked as an instructor at the Fine Arts Department in the Islamic University in Beirut.
Pascale is a passionate designer, and a strong believer in the idea that art is a key component of the overall image of any company, and designers have a big responsibility to help organizations deliver their message to their audience.
24. Ramez Youssef: Chief Creative Officer, Tayarah
Graduating with high honors as an architectural engineer with a dual degree from the University of Greenwich and the University of MSA, marked the launch of Ramez Youssef’s very interesting career.
Unexpectedly, the freshly graduated engineer’s experience with the military duty triggered a talent for stand up comedy, leaving everyone dazzled with his attention grabbing performances about his day-to-day incidents during his military service. With this, Ramez discovered his flair and passion for communication, which led him to starring as the presenter of Disalata’s famous “Mish Impossible” Youtube show for 3 seasons.
Shortly after, Disalata developed into Tayarah, which was co-founded by Mohammed El Bassiouni and Ramez, which to date is a successfully growing digital media agency. Just recently, the famous Hend Sabry joined to partner Bassiouni and Ramez in the evidently promising Tayarah.
Today, Ramez is thoroughly involved with the creative aspects of Tayarah and in charge of managing the business development side of it.
25. Ramsey Naja: Chief Creative Officer, JWT Middle East and Africa
A former pirate radio DJ, theatre director, and TV news anchorman, Ramsey Naja escaped his native Lebanon’s civil war to move to the UK in 1985. He collected an MA in Drama from Hull University and later joined J. Walter Thompson in 1994, before returning to Beirut in 2001. He was appointed Chief Creative Officer for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2004.
Under Naja’s stewardship, J. Walter Thompson MENA became one of the region’s most awarded networks, with first-time and regular international recognition in Dubai Lynx, D&AD, One Show, IPG, London International Awards, New York Festivals and Cannes amongst others. It was voted network of the year twice and most effective network in 2014. In 2015 the Cairo team won the agency its first Titanium Lion; and in 2016 the MENA Network won Network of the Year at Dubai Lynx with a record breaking 5 Grand Prix awards to its credit. He was appointed Chief Creative Officer for Middle East and Africa in 2012.
Ramsey is a member of J. Walter Thompson’s Worldwide Creative Council and a columnist in Campaign ME magazine. He is usually based in Beirut, is obsessive about comic books and skiing, but mostly about his wife Marianne and their children Emily, Sophie and Mark.
26. Sebastian Klein: Co-founder and Creative Director, Ochre
Sebastian heads-up branding for Ochre, bringing over 15years of multidisciplinary experience to his projects. He brings international expertise and thorough local understanding to the team.
Before co-founding Ochre, Sebastian was a director at Wolff Olins. His work crosses nearly every category of creative output. His unique combination of creative and strategic thinking has been central to the successful projects all around the world. Prior to moving to Dubai 7 years ago, Sebastian has worked in San Francisco, New York and London.
27. Shaun Loftman: Executive Creative Director of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEEMEA), Landor
Shaun Loftman is executive creative director of Landor’s offices across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He was handpicked to help develop and implement the branding of the iconic Burj Khalifa and its Downtown Dubai districts. Shaun is responsible for Landor’s creative work with myriad clients across a wide range of industries, including high-profile projects for sovereign, royal, governmental, and commercial entities in the CEEMEA region and beyond. Shaun has led extensive brand transformation initiatives for numerous organizations such as Alawwal Bank in Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, Union Bank of Nigeria, and Aswaaq—the United Arab Emirates’ first chain of homegrown supermarket and convenience stores.
With over 20 years of branding experience, Shaun has trained at some of London’s top design consultancies, honing his craft with prominent brands in the United Kingdom that include Diageo, GlaxoSmithKline, Guinness, Le Creuset, Manor Bakeries, Safeway, Sainsbury’s, United Distillers, and UK Athletics. Shaun has led Landor’s Middle East and Turkish teams to numerous local and international design awards. He is a dynamic team player who believes in the power of design and brand to move people and galvanize change.
28. Sherif Nashed: Partner and Creative Director, Circus
Sherif Nashed is one of those rare cases of a marketer turned Creative Director. After 5 years in marketing, between Cairo and Dubai, Nashed made the move to Saatchi & Saatchi’s creative department where he found his passion as a copywriter.
He has more than 12 years of advertising experience under his belt, with some of Egypt’s top agencies. From DDB and Saatchi & Saatchi to FP7/CAI, Nashed has worked on an array of multinational as well as local brands like Cadbury, McDonalds, L’oreal, Nescafe, El Abd & Mobinil to name a few.
Today, Nashed is partner & Creative director at Circus; one of Egypt’s fastest rising local creative agencies. In less than a year, Circus has partnered up and launched campaigns for Molto, Bake Rolz, Emaar, L’oreal Paris, Fine, Danone & Vezeeta to name a few.
29. Taimour Othman: Creative Leader, The Brand Bees
Taimour’s unique attitude & passion about design from advertising, to brand identity development and brief marketing, enables him to deliver compelling brands. BeingTrilingual with a fiercely creative mind, allowed Taimour to win a position in one of the region’s leading advertising agencies – Drive Dentsu upon his graduation, where he worked on multinational brands such as Daihatsu Automotive, Credit Agricole Bank, Orascom Telecom & Fairmont Hotels.
His creativity has now become a major force of change at The Brand Bees. He’s on a quest to build a local brand that can be one of the Fortune 500.
30. Walid Kanaan: Chief Creative Officer, TBWA/RAAD
With over 23 years of advertising experience across the Middle East and North Africa, Walid Kanaan has worked on hundreds of multinational and regional brands. In September 2015, Walid joined TBWA\RAAD as Chief Creative Officer Mena, propelling the network to win top ranks in regional award shows, including Agency of the Year and Network of the Year honors at the 2018 Dubai Lynx festival.
Kanaan’s trophy cabinet goes all the way back to 1992, spanning a multitude of prestigious regional and international award shows, including Cannes Lions, The Clios, The One Show, D&AD, Epica, Sabre, Cresta, New-York Festivals and the London International Awards to name a few.
He began his professional journey with Publicis Beirut in 1992, and after four rewarding years, he joined Impact BBDO Beirut in 1997 as Creative Director. For more than 18 years, Kanaan worked within the Impact BBDO network, covering numerous key markets including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE, before moving back to Beirut in 2010 where he was promoted to Chief Creative Officer Levant & KSA.
