Fayez Abu Awad
Chief Advisor to the Board
Arab Advisors Group

Fayez Abu Awad holds a MBA degree from the University of Oxford Said Business School and, a MS in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an international executive with 20 years of experience in the tech industry leading cross-functional teams and driving business results in small agile units of large businesses as well as start-ups, setting up operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa. His experience has spanned research, sales and marketing in media, telecoms, IT and program management in multi-nationals as well as start-ups.

Fayez has excellent credentials in developing new markets and, new products or concepts as well as setting up new businesses in the Arab world. He currently consults for technology start-ups and is a mentor for regional accelerators. He, himself, is a pioneer of digital marketing and advertising in MEA. Having sold his first Internet banner campaign in 1995, in what is arguably the first such sale in MEA, he came back to pioneer the sale of media on mobile Internet and to pioneer mobile campaign design and planning.

He is a strategy veteran who took charge of building the mobile advertising market for Nokia in the Middle East and Africa. He conceived, sold and managed award-winning interactive mobile advertising campaigns in the Middle East and various parts of Africa.

Fayez served as Vice President Middle East and Africa for Airpush, Inc. He also served as Executive Vice President Middle East and Africa for Boost Communications. Prior to that, he served as Nokia's Essential Insight manager For the Middle East and Africa, as part of the strategy team and as a director of mobile advertising, Middle East and Africa.

Fayez brings in-depth knowledge of the Arab world's telecommunication, IT and entrepreneurship ecosystem where he has helped several businesses setup their presence through intimate local market knowledge. He conceived, sourced investment and helped setup first pure mobile advertising agency in Middle East and Africa. He introduced mobile advertising campaigns in every segment of industry where his work also included the first social media channel activation. Fayez also developed the curriculum for the first Arabic language social media university diploma currently being offered by the German-Jordanian University in 2014.