Roy HADDAD / WPP

After graduating from the Institut des Sciences Politiques et Economiques in Paris, Haddad went on to complete an MBA at Columbia University. In 1977 he joined McCann Erickson and in January 1984 he established his own agency, Al Mona International. The company opened its doors with RJR’s Camel account, which was quickly joined by the Wellcome Foundation and Honda as founding clients.

Having grown rapidly to a network of five offices Al Mona International merged with Tihama, forming TMI in April 1987 with Haddad remaining at the helm of the organization.

In May 1987, TMI signed a franchised agreement with JWT. Under Haddad’s leadership the network grew from 5 offices to 8. Famous campaigns from those early days are still remembered in the region today, such as “The briefcases switch” for Winston. TMI-JWT consolidated its network of accounts with famous advertising for Lux, J&B, Sunsilk, Pif Paf, Kuwait Danish Dairy and the launch of Ford as they entered the Lebanese market.

In 2000, WPP acquired a majority stake in TMI-JWT, so the Agency was renamed JWT and more than ever it continues on its path to excellence in the MENA region with much talked about campaigns for Kit Kat, Lipton, Vodafone, Nike, STC, Smart and DTC to name but a few.

JWT MENA won Network of the year at the Dubai Lynx awards in 2010 with JWT Dubai winning Agency of the Year at Dubai Lynx in 2008 and at the MENA Cristal awards in 2009 and 2013.

The region’s footprint increased to include all of Africa in 2011 and officially became known as JWT MEA. It still operates under Roy Haddad as Chairman with 27 teams in 24 countries. Always a champion of innovation and an advocate of seamless brand experiences, Haddad has worked on developing every JWT client in the MEA region, bringing about major initiatives that drive clients’ brands and businesses across the globe.

In 2013 Haddad celebrated 35 years in the industry, 25 of which have been at JWT. Leveraging new technological advances in an imaginative way lies at the very heart of the company’s success. JWT MEA has been instrumental in harnessing communication advances throughout the region via numerous campaigns from shooting the first bee as the hero in a commercial (Airwick) to creating the first truly crowd sourced content for touch’s “In My New World” campaign in June 2012.

Roy Haddad was appointed Director of WPP, MENA, in July 2012.

He is Chairman of Mindshare and Media Com.