Archives: Session Speakers

Sheikh Adil Hussain, a distinguished marketing leader, has a legacy of transforming iconic brands and driving strategic growth across industries.

As General Manager of Beauty & Wellbeing Pakistan at Unilever, he spearheads category growth, brand innovation, and consumer engagement. Previously Chief Marketing Officer at Tapal Tea and Director Marketing at Shan Foods, he played a pivotal role in shaping market-leading strategies and strengthening brand equity.

With over two decades of experience, he has held key leadership positions, including Marketing Director & Founding Partner at WUNDERNERF, Board Member at Gillette Pakistan and Fauji Meat Limited, and Visiting Faculty at KSBL and IBA. His diverse expertise across FMCG, beauty, home care, and hot beverages reflects his deep understanding of consumer behavior and brand storytelling.

Beyond corporate leadership, he has shaped the marketing landscape as part of the Pakistan Advertisers Society’s executive council, conducted workshops on Marketing 101 and Effie case writing, and judged Effie Pakistan for six consecutive years. A qualified board director, he further broadened his expertise with a Football Business Management diploma from the Johan Cruyff Institute.

Thomas Kolster is one of the world’s leading voices where marketing, business and sustainability meet. A motivational speaker, author, impact entrepreneur and sustainable marketing advisor, he has been called “a climate change agent” by Forbes and “a pioneer of impact advertising” by Shots Magazine.

He is the author of Goodvertising (Thames & Hudson, 2012), The Hero Trap (Taylor & Francis, 2020), and contributor to Utopia Brands (2023). With his first book, he coined the term Goodvertising to describe advertising that creates positive environmental or social benefits. With his second, he challenged the industry with the idea of a post-purpose market, where people don’t buy your values, but who you can help them become. His methodology The Arrow has since been widely adopted across the industry.

Kolster has spoken in more than 80 countries for brands like Meta, adidas, P&G and IKEA, and at conferences including TEDx, SXSW, Cannes Lions and Advertising Week. As founder of the Goodvertising Agency (est. 2010), he advises Fortune 500s, start-ups, NGOs and governments on creativity, sustainability and impact.

He’s an opinionated and often-cited voice in the global debate on marketing’s role in society. A regular columnist for The Guardian and other leading outlets. He also co-hosts Purpose Hits and Misses with Ad Age, where he dissects the highs and lows of global purpose campaigns. Kolster has judged top award shows such as Cannes Lions and the D&AD Impact Awards, and serves on advisory councils including the International Advertising Association’s Sustainability Council and Act Responsible.

Named Creative Person of the Year four times by Campaign magazine, Ali Rez is the most awarded creative leader in the Middle East, and currently leads creative output for the IMPACT BBDO Group across the MENA and Pakistan region.

Rez’s work has been instrumental in Impact BBDO being named the No.2 Agency In The World on the WARC report, while winning 41 different No.1 Regional Agency accolades in three years for bringing tremendous business success and creative excellence to the Group, and positive impact to social causes.

Rez has won more than 1000 international accolades in his career spanning four continents, which include Grands Prix at all the major shows including Cannes Lions, Clio, OneShow, Loeries, Effies, LIA – awards which have led him to be ranked No.1 ECD in MENA and APAC on several creative rankings. He is the first jury president ever at Cannes Lions, Clios and One Show to represent the Middle East.

Moving from California, Rez currently lives in Dubai, where he is an avid mountain biker. Besides lecturing at Oxford University, Rez has exhibited at Tate UK, spoken at Tedx, and has traveled to 152 countries.

Junaid is an investor and entrepreneur.

As CEO of Salt Ventures, he has invested in startups that are disrupting retail, logistics, Fintech, agriculture, health and construction industries in KSA, Pakistan, UAE and beyond.

His latest venture is Caravan Media, is a digital first content platform aimed at building awareness about economic reform and opportunity in the MENA region.

In his previous roles, Junaid served as Managing Director of Careem, and as CEO of Elixir Securities and BMA Financial Services.

He holds a B.Sc in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Anton Reyniers is a seasoned creative and communications strategist, currently Head of Strategy at We Are Social Singapore. With two decades of experience spanning agency and client roles across APAC, the UK and the Middle East, Anton brings a uniquely wide-ranging perspective.

Before joining We Are Social, he shaped regional partner marketing creative at Netflix for APAC and led Google’s creative agency partnerships in the region. His agency background includes strategy leadership at Impact BBDO Dubai, and key roles with prestigious agencies such as BBH, JWT and Ogilvy, working on major clients including Nestlé, Coca Cola, Unilever and the Singapore Tourism Board.

At MADsemble, Anton will share hard-won insights on how brands can stay distinctive in an era of algorithmic sameness, harnessing data and AI while preserving the human spark that drives cultural relevance.

With over 20 years of experience in advertising, Naila Fattouh has mastered the business, strategy and craft of producing communication that transcends borders to make an impact for her clients.

Launching her career at Bates in 2004 and soon after moving to BBDO in 2008, Naila managed mega brands like PepsiCo, Mars, Barclay’s, Heineken and many more, proving her acumen for driving business results and her strategic planning abilities.

Her focus on strategy helped her take on the first Strategy Director role at Impact BBDO Cairo, setting up the department in 2014. Her expertise was noticed by FP7McCann as she moved in 2016 to lead the Strategy Department there, helping her win an accolade of global, regional and local awards and acknowledgement including Cannes, Lynx, D&AD, LIA and many more.

Her ability to shape the business earned her the General Manager position at FP7McCann in 2018, only to catch Impact BBDO’s attention once again, bringing her back to lead the Cairo operation as the CEO in 2020. Since then, the business has doubled and BBDO Cairo managed to win the only Cannes Film in the region in 2024, and the first for any Egyptian agency in the last 12 years.

Ammar Hassan is a CEO of BuyPass.ai. Before this, He was serving as CMO for Daraz and OLX. In the last 15 years, Ammar has developed to be a growth marketing thought leader with his unique views on brand, performance marketing, organizational behavior and data analytics.