Tahaab Rais is a dynamic leader who excels in strategy, data, creativity, effectiveness, and innovation. He builds winning teams and develops future leaders, leading strategy offices across the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT). The companies he has led consistently rank among the best in the world for strategic thinking and effectiveness. Rais’s teams are full of stars, and he believes they are the key to success.
As a strategic leader, Rais has a passion for creative and marketing excellence, designing models and training programs to drive business success. He finds excitement in uncovering the best solutions for complex business challenges. His curiosity extends to people—their differences, attitudes, and beliefs—and he derives great satisfaction from helping both people and brands succeed.
With experience spanning the Middle East, Asia, and beyond, Rais brings expertise in strategic consulting, integrated marketing, data analysis, and leadership. He specializes in business and data strategy, brand, content, and digital strategy, as well as cross-channel integrated solutions, relationship marketing, and customer experience management. He is known for his practical approach to technology and a bias toward action, earning him a reputation for making things happen.
Rais has worked with leading brands across multiple industries, including finance, insurance, telecommunications, FMCG, luxury, travel & tourism, retail, automotive, petroleum, entertainment, and real estate. His portfolio includes projects with HSBC, Coca-Cola, Emirates NBD, Mastercard, Sony, Nokia, Kraft, Nestle, J&J, Reckitt, Ford, Nike, L’Oreal, Microsoft, and many more.
Under Rais’s leadership, his work has garnered accolades from prestigious awards like Cannes, Effies, D&AD, Clios, WARC, Dubai Lynx, One Show, and more. His teams consistently achieve top rankings for strategic excellence, and Rais himself is the most awarded Chief Strategy Officer from the MENAT region.
Besides being a CSO, Rais is also a globally awarded film director and songwriter. He has a passion for creating ideas that solve societal problems through his personal non-profit ventures, and he speaks at conferences worldwide about creativity and innovation.
Now, Rais is the first Chief Strategy Officer for Publicis Groupe in the MENAT region. He leads the strategy office for the company’s creative, media, digital transformation, consulting, data, and CRM agencies, including Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis ME, Publicis Sapient, Epsilon, Starcom, Zenith, Spark Foundry, and MSL. His role involves connecting people, companies, and skillsets to create solutions that drive business growth and fulfill business ambitions.
Since assuming this role, Rais has helped Publicis Groupe achieve significant milestones in revenue growth, talent acquisition, talent retention, and new business wins. The company has earned numerous accolades, including Global Agency of the Year at the Jay Chiat Awards, Agency of the Year and Network of the Year at the MENA Effie Awards, and has been ranked #1 in the Global Effie Index, among other achievements.
