Steering Committee

Yasir Yasin
Yasir Yasin
Head Of Marketing - Telenor Pakistan

Yasir is a Brand Marketing guru with 15 years of corporate experience and currently heads Marketing at Telenor Pakistan. His sharp insight has shaped Telenor’s marketing into a strategic, agile and customer-centric force. Yasir is on a quest to transform, disrupt and stir up the marketing landscape in Pakistan which has resulted in many innovative Pakistan-first campaigns. These game changers have been the foundation for Telenor’s recognition at the local and international platforms. One who never sits idle, Yasir strives to further hone his design perspective exploring art, design and dabbling in sketching himself.

Farheen Salman
Farheen Salman
President BSPAN & GM Pakistan - Unilever Tea Division - Ekaterra

Farheen joined Unilever as a Management Trainee 22 years ago and was pivotal in establishing the New Initiatives cell in Pakistan which launched 6 new brands within a record time of 8 months. She also brings Brand Development experience where she crafted the portfolio and brand strategy for Euro 450 Mn Ice cream business within the North Africa and Middle East Cluster during her stint in Turkey.

While serving as the Ice Cream Director, she initiated the LCBM model that involved radical restructuring resulting in resurrecting business profitability. Farheen has delivered Noodles growth of over 15% by benchmarking the business against buoyant snacking market, landed the Beverages Flywheel at the nano geography level and has boldly led the Ice cream business by repivoting channel and portfolio opportunities

Farheen is a mother to two boys and believes her life is extremely energetic due to having two pre-teens in her life! Farheen prides herself on her purpose of life which is “Unapologetic drive to create a “WOW” balance!”

Fawaz Ahmed
Fawaz Ahmed
Ismail Industries Limited - COO

Fawaz has worked in multiple leadership roles during his 20+ year career in FMCG and Consumer Durables resulting in strong expertise in marketing, branding, commercialization, and innovation. In his current role at Ismail Industries Limited as Chief Operating Officer his role includes navigating the company through the supply disruptions of Covid-19 while developing systems to make the company more responsive to change.

A strong believer in the power of brands, in his previous role as Head of Marketing for the 3 food divisions of IIL i.e., Candyland, Bisconni and Snackcity he led the transformation of the 60+ brand portfolio with 100+ television and digital campaigns leading to explosive growth and the development of numerous brands during his tenure.

Fawaz interests now lie in strategy and innovation for which he has recently completed a 1-year leadership program from Stanford GSB. He is now involved in nurturing the next generation of Pakistani brands through a mentoring program for digital startups to guide them in achieving growth. In his free time Fawaz can be found running, reading, and trying his hand at golf – a sport which according to his children “he has absolutely no talent”.

Naveed Asghar
Naveed Asghar
Chief Executive Officer - Groupm

Naveed is an energetic, action-oriented business leader with almost three-decades of rich experience with some of the leading blue-chip companies (includes; Unilever, Coco-Cola, Pepsi-Lipton International, Fonterra, HBL) across different geographies like South Asia, Middle East, Africa & CIS. He takes pride in building some of most high voltage brands and teams. Naveed is considered to be a dynamic communicator; a strategic thinker, possess strong inter-personal skills. At present, he is the Chief Executive Officer at GroupM.

Aly Mustansir
Aly Mustansir
Director & CEO - Medialogic

Aly Mustansir began his professional life with Unilever. He spent a significant part of his career with the company in Pakistan and abroad, and was responsible for major assignments including launch of Wall’s Ice Cream in Pakistan, turnaround of the Sri Lankan ice cream business, and relaunch of the 50-year-old Lifebuoy brand. In 2006, Aly joined HBL (Habib Bank Limited) as Head of Marketing & Brand Management where he relaunched the brand with a new positioning and corporate identity, and centralized Marketing for all businesses of the bank across the globe. During his tenure, HBL was awarded the “Buzziest Brand” in the financial industry. In June 2013, Aly joined the Abu Dhabi Group in Pakistan as the Chief Marketing Officer of Bank Alfalah. He relaunched the Alfalah brand and restructured the marketing process and organization. In 2017, Bank Alfalah received a Super-brand nomination as well as other marketing awards including a PAS Award for Best Financial Services Campaign. At present, Aly is also Director and CEO, Medialogic, Pakistan’s leading TAM company.

As a Brand Consultant & Trainer, Aly advises and guides companies on building brands for business growth, optimizing marketing infrastructure and budgets, and using media effectively and efficiently. He also trains marketing teams on developing strong and insightful communication, and furthermore, he has served two terms as Chairman of the Pakistan Advertisers Society. The PAS Awards, now the Effie Awards, were launched during his first tenure. In addition, Aly serves on the jury of international marketing awards. He delivers lectures on Marketing and Branding to a variety of audiences within and outside Pakistan including countries in South and Far East Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Additionally, Aly has received various prestigious awards including the MAP Excellence Award for ‘Contribution to the field of Marketing Management’ in 2011, and ‘Asia’s Most Influential CMO’ by the World Brand Congress in 2015.

Ali A. Rizvi
Ali A. Rizvi
Founder & Chief Executive Officer - What’S Next Entertainment

Ali has over 20 years of experience in management, marketing communications and advertising with leading advertising agencies and credited for turning around 2 agencies from years of operating losses to positive earnings within the first year of taking over operational reigns.

Ali focuses on building communication strategies that lead to work that is effective because it is fresh, entertaining and intelligent. He has extensive experience at senior management level working in top agencies on clients both multinational and local conglomerates. He has worked closely in sectors ranging from airlines, beverages, confectionary, dairy, energy drinks, pharmaceuticals, FMCG, telecom, tobacco and others.

He has spent almost 2 years working on public relations for global brands such as P&G, Toyota Indus, Emirates Airlines & TCS. Ali has extensive experience of telecommunications industry and led the creative and media team that relaunched telecom leaders Mobilink, Telenor & Ufone in Pakistan and Banglalink in Bangladesh along with launching iconic brands like Indigo, Jazz, Talkshawk, Djuice & Easypaisa. In 2006 Aurora Awards his agency team won 9 awards for Telenor’s ad campaigns and PAS award for Ufone communications in 2012 & 2015.

He is a prominent writer in leading marketing magazines and has been part of the jury for PAS Awards for 3 years and Effies for past 2 years.

Aaminah Saeed
Aaminah Saeed
Deputy General Manager Marketing - EBM

EBM’s DGM Marketing, Aaminah Saeed, leads the marketing team, managing a portfolio of 17 brands. As part of the executive leadership team, she is also involved in critical decision-making processes, business growth strategy, innovation, planning and implementation. She has over 15 years of expertise in core marketing functions at companies like Nestle, Coke & L’oreal.

Farhan Khan
Farhan Khan
CEO - Brainchild Communications Pakistan

Farhan joined Starcom Pakistan in March 2017. He was with Starcom MENA for a decade and worked on industries like Automotive, FMCG, Telecom Technology, Healthcare & Fashion. He is a dynamic & performance driven professional with 19 years of media and research experience across different geographies at both multinational and local conglomerates. He has an entrepreneurial leadership style with the passion, tenacity and vision in directing core management activities to drive business growth with key focus on Digital media. Farhan is a “disruptor” who has the innovative strategic planning skills to create “Meaningful Human Experiences” that lasts long term brand & consumer relationship. Additionally, he believes focusing & investing in Data & Technology to become future ready agency & also believes that nothing is impossible if you have the will.

Adnan Syed
Adnan Syed
Design, Branding, Creative Consultant Green Man’S Ark

Adnan is a former Chief Innovation Officer at Adcom Leo Burnett (Zenith), spanning over two-and-a-half decades of experience of delivering award-winning communication solutions for top tier local and multi-national brands. Under his leadership as Creative Director, and then Chief Creative Officer, Adcom built a formidable reputation as a creative powerhouse, winning the highest number of local awards in the past two decades.

Additionally, he has been an active proponent of bridging the academic and professional design fields, teaching communication and architectural design, authoring articles for trade publications, as well as jurying at academic and industry awards. Design craft has been a life-long fascination and as an avid watercolourist, he believes nothing can soothe and inspire the mind better than laying-down the perfect wash.

Aejaz Basrai
Aejaz Basrai
Director – Strategy & Marketing - National Foods

Aejaz Basrai is a seasoned executive with over 26 years of professional experience in the FMCG industry including the last 18 years in senior marketing, General Management & CEO roles. He has worked with some of the leading global multinational companies such as P&G, Henkel and Colgate Palmolive across various geographies such as Pakistan, Middle East, North Africa and United States. Recently relocating to Pakistan after twenty years, he has joined National Foods as the COO of their International Business and Director of National Foods Strategy & Marketing.

Additionally, Aejaz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Olin School of Business, Washington University.

SARA KORAISHY
SARA KORAISHY
Chief Exexutive Officer - JWT- GREY

With 17 years of advertising experience, and a career encompassing local, regional and global roles, Sara leads the Grey Pakistan office serving clients across varied categories from FMCG, Telco, Pharma, Confectionary & Snacks, Banking & Finance and Foods to name a few. Sara is responsible for delivering work of the highest standard, driving integrated creative solutions that impact client businesses.

Mother to a 10-year-old boy, and 6-year-old girl her life is a happy (didn’t say easy!) juggling act between football, excel sheets and unicorns!

Asim Naqvi
Asim Naqvi
Chief Executive - Ogilvy Pakistan

Asim is an expert in advertising, brand strategy, perception and behavioral change.

Asim has been with the agency for nearly 13 years and has worked across the company’s Advertising, Digital and Shopper Marketing businesses. In these years, Asim helped Ogilvy Pakistan to become the largest and most effective agency operations in Pakistan, with 200+ people, 3 offices and all agency clients leading in their categories.

Asim has enjoyed over two decades in the communication business. He has the dexterity to lead integrated teams across multiple agencies and is experienced at managing relationships on a regional basis. With impeccable leadership skills and a reputation of a great leader, he is known to create a high performing team environment.

Asim is an award-winning agency leader who takes great pride in building and nurturing talent. He also manages some of the key businesses directly – looking after their relationship management and strategic planning.

Ogilvy Pakistan, under his leadership, has been acknowledged as amongst one of the best operations in the world. Asim has played a vital role for Ogilvy Pakistan & its clients to win many international awards including Clio, Ad Stars, The One Show, Spikes Asia, D&AD, Tambuli, Effie APAC, Creative Agency of the Year by Campaign Asia, Digital Agency of the Year by Campaign Asia, and Agency Network of the Year by Effie Pakistan.

In 2021, Ogilvy Pakistan is #1 office in Ogilvy APAC Network and #5 office in Ogilvy Worldwide Network. Ogilvy Pakistan is also the Most Effective Agency Network of the Year by Effie Pakistan for the 3rd consecutive year in 2021. Agency is also proud of winning the 1st ever Cannes Grand Prix and Platinum Tambuli awards for Pakistan in 2021.

Asim has been part of global and local Effie juries. He is also the steering committee member of Effie Pakistan.

He is a regular speaker at industry events and universities, where he enjoys educating audiences on the invaluable uses of advertising in business. His favourite talks have been on subjects like “Is Advertising a Science or Art, or Something Else?”, “In the Box Thinking”, “10% Is All We Need”, “Gutsy Is Sexy”, “How to advertise to Muslim Millennials” and “Perception > Reality”. He also holds mentoring sessions across business schools in top cities of the country to coach the next generation of advertisers. This provides an impetus to Ogilvy’s Mentorship Program as well.

He is passionate about reading and painting. He spends a lot of his time in learning through researching about the different religions of the world.

Ali Rez
Ali Rez
Regional Executive Creative Director - Impact BBDO Group MENAP

Ranked amongst the Top 10 Executive Creative Directors in the world, and named South Asia Creative of the Year twice by Campaign magazine, Ali Rez is one of the most successful creative leaders in the world: he has won more than 500 international accolades in his career spanning four continents.

Ali Rez’s work has been instrumental in lifting Pakistan to the forefront of the global creative community: for the country, he has won the first of many Cannes Lions, the first Clio gold, the first Effie gold, the first One Show Pencil, and the first D&AD pencil, amongst many other pioneering wins which have reshaped the industry into a more creative force. At the Effies, Rez’s BBDO team is the only agency in APAC which has ever won three Grands Prix in a row.

Rez has been on the jury at every major global award show, and is a member of the D&AD UK Impact Council which champions global design and future initiatives for purposeful causes that put planet and people first.

Besides lecturing at Oxford University and St.Martin’s College, Rez has exhibited at Tate UK, spoken at Tedx, captained a cricket county team in California, and – being a firm believer that curiosity leads to creativity – has traveled to 132 countries.