Half Lebanese, half Turkish and a nationalised Bahraini, he was born into advertising; Mom and Dad started FP7 in Beirut in 1968 and moved the head office to Bahrain in 1980. By then, the agency was Tarek’s weekend playground.While Dad was checking telexes, he was developing bromides, voicingradio spots and acting in TVCs.
At 18, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his communication degree.Being Mr. Advertising on campus, he was part of every ad association, and led a student agency to second place in the AAF National Competition.
Excited about the real thing, He went to New York to be immersed into the “truth well told” at McCann Erickson as an Art Director. It was exciting, an agency of 1500 people with some of the greatest talents in the business. These were now his peers.
He took on every brief he could get his hands on. He worked on dream brands like Salomon Smith Barney, Sprint, Lucent Technologies, Marriot, Agilent, Kohl’s, Gateway Computers, Tic Tac, Allegra and Mastercard among many others.
In 2003, he joined FP7 Dubai as an account manager where he ran the Coca-Cola account for Lebanon, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain. It was a big departure from creative but one that opened his eyes to a whole new aspect of the business.he also got involved in corporate&internal communication, as well as business development.
In 2006, the opportunity to open LOWE Middle East and North Africa became a reality and he could not resist. They were able to carve out a unique, relevant space in the market winning 9 Lynx Awards within their first 11 months of operation. They quickly grew the business from 4 people sitting on beanbags to 96 at its peak within four years. They even expanded into 4 new markets including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Morocco within that time frame.
On September 26th, 2010, He was selected, to head up the FP7 Network as CEO for the Middle East and North Africa. Meanwhile, the agency has been recognized as the most Effective Agency Network of the Year at the Effies for the last 5 years running.
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