Walid Osman is the Founder and CEO of Womenovation Foundation. His initiative followed a long international career in development communication. He accumulated knowledge and expertise in diverse domains including social marketing, public relations, multimedia journalism, branding, advertising, media planning, governance, project management, public diplomacy, event management and public opinion research. His career kicked off at UNDP social marketing project aiming to change behavior towards social issues including FGM, women empowerment and child labor. During his appointment, he coordinated ILO’s campaign “Red Card to Child Labor” in partnership with UNICEF. The campaign’s success led to his appointment as ILO’s Communications Officer in 2007. He represented Egypt at the Managing Global Governance Academy at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability in Bonn, Germany. He also represented Egypt at the “International Futures” training for international diplomats at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, Germany. Osman later completed a support assignment at ILO headquarters in Geneva to develop a communication strategy for youth employment in addition to supporting in organizing committee of the International Labor Conference (ILC). Interest in gaining private sector experience, Osman joined Starcom, a Publicis Groupe Media company (second largest communication group in the world) where he managed the media planning of the company’s biggest global brands. Years later he was appointed as Regional Public Diplomacy Officer at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he established a Regional Communication Hub promoting intercultural dialogue and opinion diversity. During his postgraduate studies, he worked for Deutsche Welle Academy in planning media education programs in Egypt and Palestine in addition to his role as Academic Researcher at the Free University of Berlin. Osman is trilingual, fluent in Arabic, English, and German. Osman holds a Master of Arts in International Media Studies from Deutsche Welle Academy / University of Bonn and a Bachelor of Arts in Integrated Marketing Communication from the American University in Cairo.
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