Memac Ogilvy ramps up, refines and raises the stakes within the Middle East communications industry

These changes, affecting the 280 personnel strong network of 10 offices in the GCC, Levant and North Africa, are set to propel the agency into a new level of growth and diversification of consultancy and product offering.

Roger Hawa, who has led the Dubai office in achieving annual year-on-year business growth for 13 years now takes on additional responsibilities within the network as Chief Operating Officer (COO). With business in KSA growing significantly, the decision has been made to restructure the Riyadh and Jeddah offices, with George Laham overseeing operations within both offices as KSA managing director, installing Rabih Khoury as the Jeddah office manager, with Gilbert Rostom managing the Riyadh office. Tony Safarian has moved from leading the Memac Ogilvy Kuwait office to take over as managing director of the Bahrain office. Ramy Iqbal, a key figure in the Kuwait office for more than 10 years, takes over the reins from Tony Safarian as managing director of the Kuwait office.

"It may seem like a great deal of reshuffling and creation of new roles, but I can assure you that we are not just paying lip service to change with these new titles and appointments. We have dedicated the year 2004 as the Year of the Employee at Memac Ogilvy, and this means making sure that we have the right internal structure to offer the right consultancy to our clients - we believe that effective structure equals happy staff which in turn means satisfied clients," explained Edmond Moutran, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Memac Ogilvy.

Middle East advertising industry followers will know that only 20 years ago, Memac Ogilvy started out with 4 people, one client, one office and a capital of only 13,000 US$. In 2004, the network services more than 70 clients across the GCC, Levant and North Africa.

"It's all very well and good to grow in the way in which Memac Ogilvy has done, but this kind of success means that the executive committee spends a great deal of time looking at how we can refine our internal structure in order to best manage the increasing size of the operation. That's why I am also proud to announce several important senior appointments which will undoubtedly have a huge impact on how we go about our daily business," added Moutran.

Such senior appointments include Ephram Jeffy as Chief Financial Officer and member of the executive committee and Leyla Chammas as Group Human Resources Manager. Ephram Jeffy's role will involve providing leadership in strategic thinking, finance, human resources and IT across the entire network, drawing upon his experiences with the Abela Group and Coca Cola. Leyla Chammas, a regional HR veteran with 23 years of experience joined Memac Ogilvy in April, taking up a newly created role that will involve her assessing and identifying the network's HR needs to implement a fully-fledged HR function for the group.