At the Creative Industry Summit This Year: 15 Impressive Speakers We’re Eager to Engage With

This executive and entrepreneur has garnered over 28 years of international communications experience under her belt. She has advised governments, wealthy individuals, high growth tech startups and global corporate giants throughout her lengthy career. And she’s coming to the Creative Industry Summit this year!

If you don’t know her, you’ll probably know the person she works with, Gary Vaynerchuk (who is also popular as Gary Vee), the cofounder of VaynerX; an outstanding communications company based in New York. Abouelenein is VaynerX’s chief value officer and EVP of business development.

Netflix, Udacity, Careem and Uber were a few of the big names she helped introduce into the Middle East from a communications, policy and business development perspective. Moreover, Abouelenein was the head of global communications and public policy for Google MENA.

Additionally, she was the founding managing director of Promoseven Weber Shandwick, and successfully managed to set up 19 PR offices in the Middle East. Before working for VaynerX and while working at Orascom Telecom, she helped launch more than 14 mobile networks across the region and Africa and supported the largest IPO and acquisition in the history of Egypt. You can learn more about her career here.

2. Ahmed Abu ElHaz

Ahmed Abu ElHaz graduated from Mansoura University with a bachelor of computer engineering. Through his career adventures, however, he slowly became the founder and CEO of Shezlong; an affordable, credible online psychotherapy platform.

Most of Abu ElHaz’s work life was focused on marketing. Along with his business partners, he managed to successfully swim against the stigma-riddled business of therapy and Shezlong garnered numerous impressive amounts of investments at its different levels of growth. Notably, their most recent round came about in the unfortunate and unstable times of the ongoing pandemic.

The most recent estimates show that Shezlong hosts more than 400 psychotherapists from 20 countries catering to 70,000 clients from 70 countries. You can learn more about their services by heading to their website through clicking here.

3. Heba Hosny

Heba Hosny is currently a business director at Wunderman Thompson; a global marketing communications agency based in New York with 200 offices in 90 markets that defines itself as “part part creative agency, part consultancy and part technology”.

Before getting there, she kicked off her career by shifting from studying political science to business administration and marketing. First she was a brand marketeer on the client’s side, then she acquired a master’s degree in international business & marketing from IE University in Madrid. Subsequently and upon her return to Cairo, she joined J. Walter Thompson as an Account Manger for Vodafone while focusing on the development of the business and the strategic and account management of agency-client relationship.

FMCGs, banking & finance and F&Bs were all among the sectors her work excelled within. And to further expand her regional knowledge of the industry, she decided to move to UAE in 2019 as a creative and business Ddirector at & Us agency in Dubai.

4. Marwan Younis

The social media phenomenon, Marwan Younes, might be familiar to you as the comic content creator and slick radio host. He has 50K+ subscribers on Youtube, 773K+ followers on Facebook and 225K+ followers on Instagram. So, it’s safe to say that his input on the creative industry, especially in Egypt, is essential.

But beside being a beloved content creator for hundreds of thousands of people, Younis has sunk his teeth in the business of advertising and now works as a creative director at FP7 McCann Cairo. And his talents don’t stop there. He’s also quite well known as a musician with 24K followers and 1.5M plays on Anghami alone.

5. Heba Arafa

Successfully building a brand takes an awesome and capable brand and communications director, and that’s Heba Arafa’s role at Vodafone. With 12 years of experience in the international telecommunications giant’s marketing department, Arafa helped orchestrate Vodafone’s 4G launch in Egypt, introdced the record-breaking “Family Charge” card and helped Vodafone find its purpose as a brand in Egypt during the COVID-19 pandemic..

The beginning of the road to being an impactful leader at Vodafone started with her enrollment as a summer intern in Vodafone itself shortly after her graduation from the American University in Cairo with a degree in business administration and marketing concentration.

6. Abeer Saud Alessa

Abeer Alessa is the first daughter of Saud Alessa (owner and chairman to the board of of Alessa Industries). Nonetheless, she took the bold decision of venturing outside of her family business and built her own impressive career path. After acquiring a diploma in arts & design, she got her first job at MBC Group as a promotion producer. A year after that, she started working as a conceptual copywriter JWT (a leading multinational agency).

Motivated by what she has learned and observed in the creative industry while working at JWT, the Saudi Arabian entrepreneur cofounded and led Bold; one of the most esteemed agencies in Saudi Arabia. In 2017, she became a member of the Advertising Committee at the Chamber of Commerce in Riyadh. Then in 2019, she became a member of the Saudi Women Leadership Circle at UNICEF.

7. Hend Sabry

Hend Sabry’s lengthy and successful career as a bold and ambitious actress speaks for itself. But what you might not know is that Sabry has also studied law, worked as a producer and cofounded the triumphant digital content company, Tayarah.

She also uses her influence for good, most notably by being a UN goodwill ambassador for the World Food Programme. And while you may remember her from numerous popular and commercial movies, her work as an actress has also received numerous awards from major international festivals in many critically praised productions.

8. Mazen Yassin (Just A GoProer)

The famed digital content creator and vlogger, Mazen Yassin knows how to exceptionally engage his decent following. His online portfolio attracted collaborations with big brands and turned into a proper business over time.

Looking at Yassin’s work now, you might miss out on his unexpectedly inspiring journey from an outstanding employee with 14 years of experience in corporates to an adventurous online persona with an infectious spirit.

For the rest of the speakers and more details on the event, click here.

9. Sir Martin Sorrell

Sorrell is the executive chairman of S4 Capital plc and they are focused on building a digital advertising and marketing service for business globally, regionally and locally for clients and ‘influencer brands’. He was the CEO of WPP, a multinational communications company in London, for 33 years that eventually became the world’s largest advertising and marketing services company too.

He’s had various experiences across all his positions until S4 Capital came to be when it merged with MediaMonks in July 2018. With all that, he also supports various top business schools and universities such as Harvard Business School and Cambridge University.