Elie Khouri

Elie Khouri (born May 8, 1964) is a Lebanese-French marketing and communications executive in Dubai. He is the CEO of Omnicom Media Group MENA, the media services division of the Omnicom Group and is regarded as one of the most influential marketing executives in the Arab world.
He has worked in the marketing industry for over 25 years, at multinational creative and media agencies BBDO, OMD and Omnicom Media Group. Under his stewardship, the agencies developed campaigns for several multinational clients including Pepsi Co, Dubai Holdings, Jumeirah, Emirates Airlines, Nissan, Beiersdorf, Kellogg’s, DaimlerChrysler, Arla Foods, Qatar Foundation and GE.
Through out his career, Khouri has received several prestigious awards and honors for his contribution to the industry. Notably, he has been featured in Forbes’ Middle Easts’ Global Meets Local list (2013, 2015 and 2016) and has also regularly appeared in Arabian Business’ list of Most Powerful Arabs.[6] The latter title has recognized Khouri for his ability to forecast, identify and capitalize on marketing and communications trends in the region

Born on May 8, 1964, Khouri lived on the east side of Beirut, where his father worked as a chef. The Lebanese Civil War broke out when he was 11-years-old, but they stayed in Beirut because his family did not have the money to relocate. From a young age, Khouri sold firecrackers, canned food, drinks, and clothing.

He attended the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he received a BBA in 1983 and a MBA in business and finance in 1988. On his way to classes at AUB, he was often in danger due to snipers in the area and he once escaped a kidnapping attempt. While attending the university, Khouri worked at a financial trading company, which dealt with trading currencies, securities and bonds.

Early career

After graduation, Khouri went to Cyprus to work for Lance de Masi at BBDO, an advertising agency that is part of the Omnicom Group. He pursued this job because he found it more interesting than finance, and the move would take him away from the civil war. Also, the banking industry had become unstable due to the global financial crisis of the late 1980s. He travelled frequently for TV commercial shoots to New York, Los Angeles and London for clients like Yves Saint Laurent and Pepsi.

In 1992, Khouri moved to Dubai, where he worked at Impact BBDO, reporting to his new father-in-law, Alain Khouri. The position was arranged by de Masi, who acted as a recruiter. He returned to Beirut in 1996 and for the next four years served as the associate managing partner of Impact BBDO.

Omnicom

Khouri returned to Dubai in 2001 and later established OMD (Optimum Media Direction), by unbundling Omnicom's media departments within its full-service agencies. The company develops advertising campaigns for their clients. Arabian Business states that "Khouri ditched a glamorous job in the advertising industry to set up the media agency OMD." This occurred when media was a minor consideration in communication planning. With the wider use of technology, media became an important element in planning advertising campaigns.

Starcom was the leading media agency in the Middle East until 2005, when OMD took the lead. The global roll-out of Omnicom Media Group's other media brand, PHD, by early 2006, saw the addition of an office in Dubai to the existing ones in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The Omnicom Media Group MENA (Middle East and North Africa), a regional holding company, was established. It reports to the Omnicom Media Group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which is based in London. In 2006, Khouri moved from his regional managing director role at OMD to assume the leadership of the Omnicom Media Group MENA and was subsequently made its CEO.

In 2007, Khouri was made regional managing director of Omnicom Media Group. By 2009, he was responsible for building the company by acquiring some of its Middle Eastern competitors.

The company realized $2.7 billion in billings for OMD, PHD and M2M; had eight offices in six countries; and employed 450 people by 2012. Khouri focused on digital, mobile, and television advertising, while also looking ahead at how to use data to drive advertising, such as targeting those travelling within the vicinity of a client. Types of targetable data include television viewing practices, social media, consumer insights, as well as market, brand and digital data. By the following year, it had launched Resolution, which specializes in social and mobile advertising and programmatic buying, which are forms of performance marketing. It uses OMD Predicts and PHD BrainScape to share intellectual property. Omnicom grew more than 30% in 2013 to $2.5 billion.

His clients have included McDonald's, Sony Mobile, Mubadala, IKEA, Bentley, PepsiCo, HTC, SABIC, Hewlett-Packard, Hershey's, Bank Al Bilad, Fonterra, and LVMH.

Workplace strategies

In 2012 and 2013, Omnicom Media Group MENA has been one of the best places to work, according to the annual list issued by the Great Place to Work institute (GPTW) in the United Arab Emirates. The company has maintained its ranking as the third best place to work from 2014 to 2016. Khouri credits the organization's success to their "team's happiness at work."

Khouri supports improving the rate at which women are employed within the industry and the Middle East. The rate at which women are employed for top positions also varies by country within the region. It is his goal to have an equal number of women and men in senior positions in his organization by 2020.

Industry organisations

Omnicom developed its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program—based upon community, environmental, and corporate behaviour objectives—and supports several arts and educational institutions. The company received the Best First Time Sustainability Report award for its inaugural Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) report at the recently held at the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards in 2016. Khouri became a board member of Injaz-UAE, an organisation dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy and START, a non-profit organisation established by Art Dubai and the Al Madad Foundation. He has also served as a board member of the United Arab Emirates chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA).

Awards and honors

He was awarded Media CEO of the year by CEO Middle East magazine in 2008. He was ranked 78th in Top 100 Global Meets Local by Forbes in 2013. Two years later, Forbes ranked him 25th in the same Top 100 list. In 2016, he was 52nd on the list.

He was named as one of the most admired CEO’s in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) by CEO Middle East magazine in 2009. In 2011, he ranked 2nd in the 50 most powerful people in media by Communicate magazine. Khouri ranked 31st in the 500 most powerful Arabs in 2011 and was 23rd in the list by Arabian Business of 2013.

Family

While working at BBDO, he met and in 1992 married a French woman named Mylene, who coincidentally had the same surname. Her father is Alain Khouri, who was the head of the BBDO office in Dubai. His wife, and the children they have had together, have resided in Beirut, including the time before 1996 when Khouri was based in Dubai. He is a Christian.

Art

Khouri is an art patron, with a collection of 200 contemporary paintings, sculptures and design objects. Some of the works from his collection are displayed at Omnicom Media Group MENA headquarters in Dubai. In addition to the work with START, he supports the Association for the Promotion and Exhibition of the Arts in Lebanon (APEAL), a non-profit organisation dedicated to showcasing and encouraging Lebanese artists.