Meet the speakers

Husni Khuffash

Husni Khuffash
Country Business Manager
GOOGLE

Ali Sinaei

Ali Sinaei was born in Tehran, Iran, 1977. His family moved to London in the United Kingdom in 1979, and that is where Ali was brought up and educated, and also where he started his career. After graduating with an Honours degree in Mathematics, Ali chose to work in Banking for the first 3 years of his career.

Having always been interested in the world of Media, Ali was constantly looking for ways to hone the analytical experience he had gained, and when the opportunity arose to take up a position as an analyst at Propertyfinder.com, he jumped at the chance. Having gained some experience working for a “dot.com”, he next moved to AOL UK where he headed Strategic Planning for their Online Advertising division.

In April 2007, Ali could not turn down the opportunity to move to Dubai permanently to establish and head the Ad Sales division at Bayt.com, the Middle East’s Number 1 Job Site.

A year in, Bayt can now boast some of the most successful global and regional companies as its clients.

Arun Joshi

Arun Joshi works at The Nielsen Company and is the leader of a regional function covering Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa. He is based in the United Arab Emirates office of Nielsen. He has a total of seventeen years of experience in marketing research, of which, over nine years has been in this region. His experience includes consumer research, business-to-business research and retail trade research spanning a wide repertoire of industry, product and service sectors. His role at Nielsen covers a broad spectrum of responsibilities related to the enhancement of quality and efficiency of Nielsen’s people, processes, and products delivered to their clients. It includes leading the knowledge management process across multiple research disciplines, creating and developing research tools that help enhance the value of integrated research solutions, and training and development of people. He has conducted several training workshops on basic and advanced topics related to marketing research, for audiences comprising business leaders, marketing professionals, sales professionals, advertising professionals and research professionals. He has also been a visiting faculty and guest lecturer for the advanced marketing research discipline at several leading business schools. Arun graduated in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi. He did his post-graduation in management, specialising in marketing and systems from the Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar in India and has undergone training in Advanced Data Analysis at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad.

Bobby Kakar

Bobby Kakar is Head of Marketing for Direct Channels at HSBC Bank Middle East Ltd. He has over 15 years of sales and marketing experience and is currently responsible for the Bank’s online savings propositions’ and the customer adoption of electronic channels. In his ten years in the Gulf, Bobby has developed and launched numerous financial products the latest being the Region’s first true online savings proposition – eSaver from HSBC, which recently won the Banker Middle East Magazine award for the Best Savings Account in the region. Prior to HSBC, he has worked with ABN AMRO Bank and First Gulf Bank in the Middle East, and HDFC Bank and Titan Industries Ltd in India. Bobby holds an MBA in Marketing and is a graduate member of the Institute of Cost and Works Accounts, India.

Lina Habib Naifeh

With more than 9 years regional experience, Lina's passion for digital has transcended her career. Originally arriving as an architect on a 6months contract for the Burj Al Arab project, as part of her scope she designed the interactive multimedia system and functionality, look and feel, etc. It was really then that her passion for digital developed and she moved permanently into the digital field.

Lina's experience saw her move to Publicis Graphics in 2000, where she later launched and became General Manager of eWorks under the Publicis Graphics umbrella, one of the main digital agencies in the Middle East with clients including BA, HP, Nestle, Carrefour and many more. As part of her role here, Lina launched Nestle's first digital presence in the Middle East.

From 2005 working as a strategic consultant, Lina has continued to develop the long term-strategic planning for brands on digital platforms, projects including major brands such as Coca Cola, McDonalds, etc.

More recently Lina has joined Nakheel to use her innovative digital skills to take Nakheel to the next level, she is responsible for driving the overall digital strategy and Nakheel’s presence on the global arena through diverse online channels, managing all the digital requirements for business units across Nakheel. Her industry experience will ensure Nakheel becomes one of the leading brands to utilize digital marketing as a communication platform on a strategic level.

Lina is one of the most respected contributors to the Digital Marketing arena in the Middle East and contributes where possible to its development.

Lina Habib Naifeh
Senior Manager – Digital Strategy
Nakheel

Ahmed Nassef

Ahmed Nassef is Vice President of the Maktoob Group and General Manager of Maktoob.com, the Arab world’s leading Web portal and online community.

With over twelve years of professional experience in marketing management and consulting both in the US and the Arab world, Ahmed has specialized in the implementation of direct marketing, response-based techniques to maximize the profitability of customer relationships, both online and through traditional media.

Before joining Maktoob, Ahmed was Senior Consultant with database marketing firm Cross World Network, where he developed marketing programs for Acxiom Corporation and McCann Relationship Marketing. He also served as Vice President, Marketing at Omnipod, a developer of Internet based software based in New York and as Vice President of Marketing for Human-i-Tees, Inc., where he helped grow revenues from $1 Million to $45 Million annually in less than six years, making it the US's leading cause-related cataloguer of products targeting the youth and education markets. Ahmed has also published articles on marketing topics for various U.S. based direct marketing trade publications.

Michael Lahyani

Michael Lahyani is the Co-founder and CEO of the first international property portal in the UAE, Propertyfinder.ae. He recently sold 51% of the company to the REA Group of Australia, which operates the world’s only truly global real estate advertising company—with 18 websites in 10 countries.

Michael is also the Co-founder and CEO of Swiss Media Group, which publishes 7 magazines and their corresponding web portals in Switzerland and the UAE. His titles include three different editions of Equestrio - a high-end magazine on equestrian sports and lifestyle; Swiss Watch Report - a magazine on luxury timepieces; AlBabWorld - the largest circulated property listing magazine in the UAE.

Earlier in his career he worked at PriceWaterhouseCooper in Geneva, which is his hometown. He received his MBA with a specialty in Finance from HEC Lausanne and spent a year in UCLA California.

Rakan Brahedni

Born to Saudi and British parents, and having lived in the USA and the UAE, Rakan bridges so many cultural divides that he is a true citizen of the globalized world. With a degree in Management Information Systems, and extensive involvement in web-based communications, he can also claim to be a true "netizen" of the digitized world.

Rakan began designing for the web in 1996, around the time when the Internet was only just beginning to enter the mainstream. By 2001, he took his passion for web design to the next level and began to offer his services professionally. Over the next several years, he provided web design, web development and graphic design services to clients in the USA and UAE.

When Nestlé Middle East created the post of New Media Relationship Specialist in 2007, Rakan's multi-cultural background and extensive digital marketing savvy made him a natural choice. He has since spearheaded the food giant's online and new-media ventures catering to 12 countries in the Levant and the Gulf. Passionate about new ideas, Rakan is at the forefront of Nestlé's drive to establish itself among the region's leading innovators in digital marketing.

Sara Andersson

Sara has an international marketing degree and has worked with search engine marketing since 1999. She was the founder of the first search engine marketing department of the Outrider group (part of WPP) in Sweden and is still one of the pioneers in the market. She later became Head of Search EMEA at Global Strategies Intl. managing clients such as IBM, Samsung, BP and P&G. Global strategies Intl. was acquired by neo@Ogilvy in 2007. Sara has 10 years experience in conducting high level strategic search consultancy for clients with high complexity and is now managing her own company; Search Integration Sweden AB.

At Search Integration she is focused on helping clients understand search and how to integrate this in their overall business and marketing plans to drive and measure success at the bottom line. The job often involves helping clients define the actual search marketing need and how it can best support other activities but also in many cases evaluate what can be outsourced and what should be kept internal. Sara's mission at Search Integration is to shape the search marketing world in Sweden and EMEA and provide knowledge and competence to small and big clients in their role as a buyer and user of search marketing services.

Sara is also Chair of SEMPO Svandinavia and the local host of SMX - SearchMarketingExpo Stockholm.

Sara Andersson
Founder & Senior Strategist
Search Integration Sweden AB

Surya Yalamanchili

Surya's broad interests have led to interesting experiences across entrepreneurship, the corporate world, and even reality TV. In 1996, during the early days of the Internet, Surya started a successful e-commerce consulting firm at the age of 15. Subsequently, while attending Rutgers University, he worked as Director of Marketing at DiversityInc, served as a class president, gave the commencement address, and then graduated with honors. After Rutgers, Surya joined Procter & Gamble, and by age 24, became one of the youngest Brand Managers in company history. He took a brief detour during this time when he was chosen from over a million applicants to "compete" on the national TV show, The Apprentice. In 2007 he was honored by Advertising Age with inclusion on the "40 under 40" list. He blogs at suryasays.com and currently ther ditrector of marketing at linked in.

Terry Kane

A dedicated online professional and self confessed Tech Geek, Terry Kane is responsible for the digital marketing of the dynamic Dubai based luxury international hospitality management company. Jumeirah are currently undergoing a full digital rethink and have focused on user feedback as the main direction of development. Always seeking to live by the STAY DIFFERENT philosophy, Terry is responsible for implementing the innovation that ensures users get more from every element of their online experience than most in the industry offer.

Terry Kane
Digital Marketing Manager, Distribution Marketing & Innovation.
Jumeirah

Dana Adhami

Dana Adhami is the Director of Strategic Planning at Mindshare Interaction, one of the leading digital media agencies in the Middle East. In her role, Dana is responsible for managing all annual digital strategic planning for key clients, by defining their overall long-term digital approach, creative concepts & implementation techniques.

Prior to joining Mindshare, Dana held the dual roles of New Business & Strategy Director at leading interactive agency Catch, where she developed strategic insights for key clients, researched and identified new online media opportunities and drove Catch's business growth and sales forward. Dana also worked in various industries such as consumer and market research, PR and marketing.

An active member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK, Dana was nominated as Young Talent of the year by Gulf Marketing review in 2007. Dana is passionate about online media and loves everything internet.