How to get ahead in advertising

Regional manager of Omnicom Media Group Elie Khouri shifted to advertising in the late 80’s to escape the Lebanese civil war and the financial global financial crisis. He has since worked his way to the top. Melissa Sleiman meets him.

"The interview is about my life, right? Not just business," 44-year-old Elie Khouri asks me as I walk through the door of his office in Dubai Media City. The regional managing director of Omnicom Media Group (OMG) appears to be tired of discussing the current economic situation. But it was a rocky time like this, the stock market crash in 1987, to be exact, that pushed him to move to where he is today.

Khouri is wearing an immaculate navy blue suit. His office is elegantly stylish, half of which consists of floor to ceiling windows boast a spectacular view. We look over a lake with ducks as we sip cafe lattes from his fancy coffee machine. The picture looks good, as does the track record of his business.

The New York-based holding company OMG has had a terrific year, both regionally and globally. Last year's worldwide revenues equaled US$12.7 billion. The company scooped the accolade for Agency of the Year at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, which ire renowned as the most prestigious advertising festival in the world.

OMG's business in the Middle East is led by the Dubai office. Since the three advertising network companies of Omnicom - BBDO, DDB and TBWA - united in 2001, it has grown into one of the biggest media and marketing giants. Khouri spearheaded a team that brought the partners together.

But he has not always been as successful as he is now. "I come from a very modest family," he says, with a smile. "I was raised in a conservative way. My parents invested time of time in injecting the right values and the driving principles in life."

The Lebanese-born executive studied business administration at the American University of Beirut, and graduated in 1986, during the civil war in Lebanon. "I was studying under the pressure of bombs and the problems were really tough," he remembers.

"But we survived it." He then started working at a financial trading company while doing his MBA. The job focused on financial aspects, such as bonds, securities and trading currencies.

"I thought: ‘finance is the way to go'. It's accountable, you can quantify everything you do and I like to look at results. Then there was the stock market crash in '87 - my biggest disappointment. I saw that all the wealth and people's lives were destroyed for no reason. It seemed unreal. The illusion that finance is something you can plan, forecast and anticipate vanished. That was my first exposure to the real world."

Khouri's friends pushed him to get into communication and advertising, "which was beginning to become something interesting at the time". The situation in Lebanon remained unstable. He opted for an offer in Cyprus in 1988, one year after the stock market crash. The company he joined was Impact BBDO, a regional advertising and marketing communications part of Omnicom Holding.

One of the reasons he initially left BBDO, was because he was dating the chairman's daughter, Mylene, who is now his wife. They met during a social event in Cyprus. She was in the country to visit her father. "Everyone told me: ‘Don't touch! It's too crazy'," he laughs. "But when you're young, you don't care and just do what you think is right." The couple got married in 2002.

"My connection to Alain [Khouri, Impact BBDO Group chairman and his father-in-law, who coincidentally has the same surname] has always made my job more difficult. It meant that I had to prove myself more. Alain was tougher on me than on other employees. He wanted to make the line between family and business clear. My wife used to work for the company as well, but she resigned when I started taking more senior jobs. Again because of the family thing."

Khouri moved to France in 1991, as he holds a French passport. He was offered jobs and wanted to work for a big advertising agency, but quickly realised it was "the worst time" to relocate as it was at the beginning of the recession.

A few months after his move to Paris, he joined the Dubai company Lintas/Gulf Advertising. Khouri worked with them for a year and then moved back to BBDO.

They offered him a position as an account director with a "challenging portfolio and good career prospects." He lived and worked in Deira - the centre of Dubai at the time.

"It was the beginning of the hub," remembers Khouri. "Dubai was fun, small, we all knew each other. It was a simple life, unlike today. I preferred it like that. The furthest place [of the city] was where Burj al Arab is. If we really wanted to go far, it was to Jebel Ali Hotel. Small roads took us there. All of this" - he gestures around him - "was desert."

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