Leadership Team

Iman Fawaz is the head of partnerships at iConnect. Fawaz is a digital media & marketing professional with over a decade of rich experience working and understanding the MENA’s digital media landscape. Her forte lies in building and developing strategic marketing offerings for fashion, lifestyle, luxury, and beauty brands across the MENA region. In addition, Fawaz demonstrates a sound understanding of the Middle Eastern consumer’s behavior and interests in terms of content consumption, response, engagement, and advertising formats.

In her previous role as Group Commercial Digital Lead at Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Fawaz led the digital commercial for Hearst magazines and was instrumental in launching and growing new digital models, concepts, and initiatives for the organization. In her previous stints, she has also worked with organizations like DMS, Mediaquest Corp., and Dotmena.

At iConnect, Fawaz leads the sales and partnerships for the influencer marketing platform. Additionally, she further facilitates influencers’ search, selection, and management for brand ad campaigns.

Fawaz holds a degree in Mass Communication from the American University of Sharjah and is a Google certified digital marketer.

Salah Moustafa is the chief operating officer at iConnect. Moustafa has over a decade of experience in the digital and performance marketing space and profoundly understands the region’s rapidly evolving marketing and advertising landscape. Moustafa has closely witnessed the rise of influencer marketing in the MENA region, giving him insights into the requirements of brands and content creators. Apart from handling various senior roles at ArabyAds over many years, Moustafa has worked with companies like Bayt.com and Ikoo in his professional journey. In his current role, Moustafa is responsible for translating strategy into actionable goals for performance and growth, helping to implement organization-wide goal setting, performance management, and annual operating planning. In his current role, Moustafa is responsible for translating strategy into actionable goals for performance and growth, helping to implement organization-wide goal setting, performance management, and annual operating planning. Moustafa holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Benha University and speaks Arabic and English.

Mahmoud Fathy is the chief executive officer and co-founder of ArabyAds. He is a physics graduate who happens to be more passionate about revolutionizing digital marketing for the Arab world.

Mahmoud founded ArabyAds in 2013 to empower the growth of e-commerce in the MENA region. He pioneered the concept of performance advertising in the region and has been a great advocate of the power of data and technology for the advertising industry.

Under his leadership, ArabyAds became the largest advertising and marketing intelligence platform in MENA in a short period. Moreover, his vision of prioritizing the client’s success and empowering advertisers with data, transparency, and precision to reach the right audience has paid rich dividends.

Mahmoud has been the driving force behind various acquisitions and successful partnerships that have significantly added to the company’s technological capabilities making it the platform of choice for the industry in the region. His unrelenting commitment to providing simplified solutions and solving the clients’ real problems through meaningful technological interventions has put ArabyAds at the forefront of the digital advertising and marketing industry in the region.

Mohammad Khartabil is the chief business development officer and co-founder at ArabyAds. With more than 15 years of experience in business development across digital marketing and advertising companies in the Middle East, Mohammad has worked tirelessly to improve awareness about the performance marketing industry in MENA.

In his current role, Mohammad has been instrumental in building and growing ArabyAds, making it a leading e-commerce marketing platform in the region. A firm believer in creating sustainable business and providing a competitive advantage, his working approach has resulted in exponential growth. Under his mentorship, the team has forged significant and long-term partnerships with advertisers and publishers. In addition, Mohammad has been responsible for creating the go-to-market strategies integral to the expansion of ArabyAds. His key responsibilities include business development, sales, product management, operations, and P&L.

Mohammad is also the co-founder of Arab Affiliate Summit, the first performance marketing annual event in the MENA region. Before joining ArabyAds, he worked at various leadership positions in TailWind EMEA, RewardCraze, and Ikoo, where he built many new properties, focusing entirely on the Middle East market.
Mohammad holds a degree in Computer Science from the American University of Sharjah.

With a career spanning over 2 decades, Gulrez Alam is one of the stalwarts of the digital industry. Gulrez became an entrepreneur with Resultrix and expanded it to become a leading digital marketing agency across USA, Singapore, UAE, and India. The company was later acquired by the Publicis Group – the acquisition being marked as one of the most successful exits in the agency world. Hereon, Gulrez led Zenith Optimedia’s foray across 14 markets in the APAC region.

From the USA to APAC to the MENA region, Gulrez has used his vision for the digital industry and its potential, to make ambitious investment decisions and drive many projects to success. His exposure across cultures and geographies has rendered him an open minded but strategic thinker. His association with Affle Holdings saw the company go public on the Indian Stock Exchange as he contributed through various acquisitions and organic expansion.

In his current role at ArabyAds, Gulrez is yet again the driving force behind the company’s strategic & investment decisions and their flourishing global expansion.

In his precious free time, Gulrez can be found pumping iron at the gym or pumping adrenaline through whizzing wheels or deep dives!

Tarek Nachnouchi is the chief product officer at ArabyAds. With a career spanning almost two decades, Tarek has witnessed the evolution and the rapidly changing dynamics of the digital marketing and AdTech space from a very close quarter. His successful professional stints with various digital organizations in the top leadership role make Tarek one of the best minds in the digital marketing industry in the MENA region.

Moreover, his varied and rich experience working across different markets like Tunis, Paris, London, Milan, and Dubai brings in an extra dimension to create products that efficiently solve consumers’ problems. Tarek had worked with several international companies like Maktoob (Search Director), IKOO (COO), Jumia Tunisia (CEO), Nextedia, Yahoo, Access, and Medianet.

At ArabyAds, Tarek handles the product strategy and deployment across the different entities of the group, including Performance AdTech, Influencer AdTech, programmatic buying, and e-commerce. He successfully builds top-notch products by simplifying the processes that increase usability and enhance user experience. In addition, he continuously strives to introduce new features in the products in line with the global trends to provide an opportunity for our clients to experience truly world-class service.

Graduated with a Master’s in marketing & management, Tarek is also a serial entrepreneur who has created multiple startups during his professional journey. He focuses on product innovation and management to seamlessly combine business and technology knowledge.

Tarek speaks Arabic, English, French, Spanish and Italian.

Bachir Siam is the chief financial officer at ArabyAds. He is a corporate executive with strong financial expertise and has a successful track record building organizations, improving profitability, and providing frameworks that enhance managerial accountability to support growth and strengthen financial discipline.

Bachir has held various leadership positions with leading global organizations like GroupM, Mindshare, PepsiCo, Motorola Mobility, EY, and Deloitte across the EMEA region in his more than a two-decade-long professional journey.

In his current role at ArabyAds, Bachir focuses on delivering commercial benefits across MENA, managing risks and compliance priorities, working through cost control initiatives and revenue growth opportunities, expanding into new markets, and assessing acquisition targets and potential synergies. His vision for ArabyAds is to create a robust and sustainable finance organization whose foundation is built on three fundamental pillars, talent, system, and process, that fuel the company’s growth.

Bachir holds a master’s degree in Finance and holds the CPA, CISA, Diploma in IFRS, CTP, and ICVS certifications. He has also completed an on-campus executive education program in corporate restructuring, mergers, and acquisition from the prestigious Harvard Business School.

Bachir likes to read, jog, scuba dive, and go skiing in his free time. He also gives personal finance advice to help create a financially independent community.

Barbara Soltysinka is the co-founder and chief executive officer of indaHash. Barbara started her professional journey with a PR agency before founding LifeTube, an MCN and talent agency, in 2013, which has over 217 million subscribers today.

In 2016 she exited LifeTube to start indaHash, one of the biggest influencer marketing platforms globally, along with Wlas Chorowiec, co-founder and chief technology officer.

Barbara has been honored with various awards, including the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Man of the Year by IAB, and recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Influencer Marketing.
She loves animals and is interested in biohacking. In her free time, she meditates and explores human consciousness.

Barbara has graduated in Media Marketing from the University of Warsaw and PR & advertising from the Warsaw School of Advertising.

Wlas Chorowiec is the co-founder and chief technology officer of indaHash. Wlas has been actively working in the digital space since 2004 and is an expert in IT project management, content marketing, and digital advertising.

Wlas co-founded indaHash in 2016 alongside Barbara Soltysinka, co-founder and the chief executive officer of the leading global influencer marketing platform. At indaHash, he is responsible for product expansion and growth.

Before founding indaHash, Wlas was the co-owner of LifeTube. He describes himself as a blockchain and NFTs enthusiast.

Madhu is a veteran leader with over 21 years of industry experience across the AdTech and MarTech world. His deep expertise includes scaling businesses and teams across Digital Marketing, CRM and Loyalty solutions. Madhu has successfully led essential engagements for clientele across North America, Europe, and APAC markets. A strong believer in building great teams, he is passionate about coaching and mentoring talent. His last stint was with Publicis Groupe, where he built and led teams for Epsilon and CJ businesses in APAC and India for over 7 years.

Madhukar graduated in Electronics and achieved an honors diploma in Space Science and an MBA degree in Marketing & HR. An avid traveler, he loves exploring different countries and enjoys adventurous road trips.

As an experienced digital growth catalyst with over 18 years of thought leadership in innovation and GTM strategy in the advertising technology and digital media sectors, Imad has a proven track record of driving business expansion and revenue growth through impactful digital strategies and products in the MENA region.

He is a trusted C-Level & board advisor with expertise in leading and coaching multicultural teams and building collaborative cross-functional partnerships. With his highly analytical approach, he excels in creating standards for optimized workflow and strategic business planning and execution.

If you are looking for a results-driven professional who can help your organization thrive in the digital age, Imad is always keen to connect.

Tony has over 16 years of experience in communications and marketing. In addition to his success as a leader in his prior role as a regional digital director, he has a strong understanding of the needs of today’s marketers and in-depth knowledge of the broad geographies within MENA.

As a digital native, Tony has spent much of his career supporting brands through their overall digital transformation, especially across media and communications & increasingly through data solutions. Tony’s background has a creative skew. Following his education in architecture and theatre design, he changed course and started his marketing and communications career at a leading betting and gaming company in the UK.

His move to the region came in 2007 when he shifted to Saudi Arabia where he was tasked with establishing the first digital department within a media agency in the country. Tony has gained extensive knowledge of the challenges and opportunities that each country presents and has led extensive teams of marketing professionals with impeccable integrity and passion.

When not in the office, you will possibly find him cooking his infamous pumpkin & leek lasagna at home.

Patrick is the CEO of EQ2 Ventures, a Dubai-based investment holding resulting from the spin-off of Equitrust, the corporate VC arm of Choueiri Group (a large media representation group in Middle East and North Africa). Patrick is also a founding & investment committee member of Dubai Angel Investors.

Prior to dedicating his full professional time to EQ2 Ventures, Patrick acted as Choueiri Group’s Chief Strategy Officer from 2014 to 2019. Before that, Patrick had spent 20 years in banking, where he steered various acquisitions and organic development projects for Societe Generale and BNP Paribas across Europe, Asia and North America, acting as BNPP Wealth Management’s CEO for the MENA market until 2013.

A French national, keen sailor and scuba diver, Patrick graduated with a Master in Finance from EDHEC (Ecole Des Hautes Etudes Commerciales Lille) and holds an Executive MBA from INSEAD.