Advertisers Business Group appoints Louis Hakim as the new chairman

Louis replaces former Unilever Chairman, Jan Zijderveld, who is departing from the Middle East on to a new opportunity at Unilever based in Singapore.

Alongside Louis Hakim's election, the newly appointed members of the committee include Sara Sahely, Manager of Group Advertising of Emirates, who was re-elected as Vice Chair, Raef Labaky from Nestle, Mark Butterfield from Unilever, Margie Gilbride from Beiersdorf, Chareeka Jolly from Kraft and Fadi Ghosn from General Motors.

"We will cooperate together to form a strong representation of the brand community at large, ensuring the implementation of the ABG's vision of taking the lead in setting global best practice standards in Media and Advertising", says Louis Hakim, Chairman of ABG. "We will also develop communication campaigns to raise awareness and drive interest around ABG."

Through his new role, Louis together with the team aim to keep the momentum on People Meters and constantly evaluating the regular updates on the progress and results, in addition to pushing forward a quantifiable auditing process of print publications using Castor.

"As an association, we will work on building bridges with large organizations on common topics of interest where learnings and successes can be shared. Moreover, ABG will also seek to enhance its membership by providing quarterly or semi-annual forums to give marketers the opportunity to discuss issues and challenges facing them in the Middle East. These forums will be followed by workshops where potential solutions can be generated in addition to promoting cross learning between brands through sharing challenges and best practices", added Louis.