Personal Profile
Multi award winning senior creative director with over 20 years of experience in advertising, marketing and publishing leading an in-house agency and delivering world-class design across digital and print. Career to date clearly demonstrates:
• Extensive experience in developing brands and growing audiences and customers.
• A proven track record of successfully juggling internal client needs with the pressure to deliver large volumes of content to tight deadlines at world-class standards.
• Significant experience leading and developing large creative teams to win over one hundred design industry awards as well as securing personal industry recognition for a variety of projects, visual identities for major events and special coverage for global consumer brands.
• Successfully leadership and management of teams through periods of organisational change.
Experience
YAP 2022 - Present
Arab News
YAP 2022- Present Chief Creative Officer
(2022 – Present)
Global Creative Director (2022)
Key responsibilities
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Developing creative strategy for the YAP brand globally (UAE, KSA, Pakistan and Ghana) and for specific products including VOLT Payroll and YOO Token (UAE).
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Leading the global inhouse creative team on global advertising campaigns, marketing, branding, events, and partnerships.
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Developing an inhouse agency revenue stream to create content for new clients.
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Producing advertising and marketing campaigns for third parties.
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Initiating TVC and content ideas and writing scripts, storyboards and signing off on all video output across the brand.
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Directing photo and video shoots.
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Copywriting for advertising campaigns and marketing comms.
Key responsibilities
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Creative direction for special projects, new products and special coverage.
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Collaborating with external suppliers and commissioning specialist design work from illustration to animation.
Global Creative Director 2018 – 2022
Key responsibilities
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Leading and directing the design strategy and visual development of the brand in established and new markets, including but not limited to:
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Launching Arab News Japan, a Japanese language brand, and Arab News En Français. o Leading the successful implementation of a major redesign, across print and digital. o Managing the creative demands of numerous internal stakeholders which include but not limited to the executive team, senior editors and section heads.
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Directing multi-platform editorial projects for major events in The Middle East. o Launching and leading design on Arab News Deep Dives, immersive multimedia stories using long form software called Shorthand.
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Head of video initiating editorial ideas and directing scripts, storyboards and signing off on all video output across the brand.
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Directing photo and video shoots, collaborating with external suppliers and commissioning specialist design work from illustration to animation.
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Developing the editorial infrastructure and operations for the creative team globally in bureaus across the world, including:
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Improving infrastructure across the brand, in particular the main creative hubs in Jeddah, London, Dubai and Islamabad.
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Educating and developing design and visual skills across all departments with regular training presentations and workshops
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Developing basic typographical and fundamental design rules across the creative team globally to align design excellence
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Setting clear direction, objectives and performance targets aligned to Arab News strategy on a regular basis
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Developing a comprehensive style guide and ensure proper implementation with third party vendors and clients
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Developing marketing and commercial opportunities with external clients to enhance revenue at Arab News.
2014-2018
Group Art Director, Acting Creative Director
Telegraph Media Group
2008-2014
Art Director,
The Daily Telegraph
2005-2008
Art Editor, Features and supplements,
The Daily Telegraph
2005-2008
Acting Deputy Art Director,
The Daily Telegraph
2003-2005
Art Editor, News and Business sections
The Daily Telegraph
2001-2003
Art Editor, The Daily Telegraph, Weekly supplements and City Office
2000-2001
Art Editor, DotCom Telegraph,
The Daily Telegraph