Omnicom Media Group MENA has announced the promotion of Elda Choucair from COO to CEO.

Elie Khouri, chairman of the group, served as CEO temporarily but will now concentrate on his role of chairman.

Prior to Khouri, Nadim Samara held the role of CEO for the group and left last year. He is now the COO at MBC Media Solutions (MMS), the in-house commercial and advertising sales unit created by MBC Group last year.

Choucair’s tenure as COO has seen her focus heavily on the group’s response to the impact of the pandemic, further demonstrating her leadership talents.

She will continue to report to Khouri, who founded OMG two decades ago and whose career at Omnicom spans more than 30 years. Choucair will now assume full control of all OMG MENA operations and accelerate their transformation.

“Elda is a true success story in her own right and has never stopped impressing everyone around her. Her vision, coupled with her pragmatism and attention to detail, means that she knows where we need to go and how to get there,” Khouri said.

A 15-year veteran at the group, Choucair has held senior account positions at OMD and led PHD for more than 10 years. Under her leadership, the regional media planning network, PHD, grew sevenfold and became a key player in the region.

She is also an active industry figure, as vice-chair of the Advertising Business Group (ABG), board member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) GCC, and the International Advertising Association (IAA) UAE Chapter, and a founding board member of the Unstereotype Alliance.

“Navigating complexity and ambiguity certainly makes leadership exciting and rewarding in equal measures,” Choucair said. “Our industry, in the midst of a deep and rapid transformation, provides plenty of both and if we are to make complex simpler and better for our clients, we owe it to them to start with ourselves,” she said.