MCN announces new CIO position to take group forward

Fadi Salameh, CEO of the Middle East Communication Networks announced a new position at the Middle East's largest agency network HQ - that of Chief Innovations Officer.

The new position is probably a first-of-its-kind in the advertising industry, in the region, although global agency HQs for Publicis, McCann etc have already created this new age position.

Tom Roychoudhury, who moved to Dubai from Canada to join the group five years ago was appointed the new CIO.

The position is very much in line with a global trend where ad agencies, corporate giants, multi-function companies and FMCGs alike are appointing this position - best filled by left-brained/right brained people who comfortably marry marketing and technology in their job challenge.

MCN owns and operates several key ad and media agencies in the region including Fortune Promoseven, Universal Media, Lowe, Initiative, Magna, Weber Shandwick, Momentum, McCann Promoseven, etc and is an IPG company.

Fadi Salameh said "Tom Roychoudhury has been the evangelist in our company towards this direction. He has been a successful change agent, and has always asked 'What If?' and 'Why Not?' and 'If not now, when?'. Tom will have the challenge of developing innovation and new media thinking as a company culture. He will work with me closely to help harness new ideas, technology, information and communications to move both ours, and our clients' business forward. He will be the main point of inspiration and for our digital initiatives, but his role will be wider in scope, in that he will hopefully work with all of us closely to innovate, imagine, and jump forward into the future."

Tom said

"Staying on the leading edge of marketing communications is no longer a nice-to-have for us as the regions leading agency group. It's a must have. Everywhere, change is happening around us, and we have to keep pace, and stay ahead of the game. We have to be innovative, daring, imaginative and embrace these changes that both consumers and technology are driving in the world around us.

We need to keep our agencies abreast and ahead of changing cultures, trends, viewpoints - carefully walking the thin line between our traditional ways of marketing communications and new and emerging media - using and adopting them to improve our product and service solutions for our clients. If we don't do this for our clients - someone else will."

The new CIO position will work with all agencies within MCN in four main areas of innovations and new age management thinking: digital, internal communications, external communications and management.