Nabil Sleiman has been named a winner of Campaign Middle East’s Marketing Game Changers Awards for 2025.
The awards recognise client-side marketers whose work delivered excellence across six criteria: Leadership & Talent Development, Creativity & Innovation, Performance & Business Impact, Brand Building, Social Impact and Industry Contribution.
The Marketing Game Changers Awards were launched this year to recognise marketers driving meaningful impact for their brands and the wider industry. The programme introduces a structured and transparent approach to spotlighting standout talent, with defined criteria, formal submissions and independent evaluation.
Open to brand-side marketers across MENA and free to enter, the 2025 edition of the Marketing Game Changers Awards named ten winners in total with the Marketer of the Year leading the inaugural cohort.
NABIL SLEIMAN
Head of Marketing Communications, Almarai Company
Years in the company: 6
Years in the region: 20
Nabil Sleiman is a multi-awarded marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience elevating powerful brands, mentoring multidisciplinary teams and driving unconventional campaigns powered by data and deep consumer insights.
As Head of Marketing Communications at Almarai Company since 2019, the fourth most valued dairy brand in the world for the year 2025, Sleiman leads a diverse portfolio of more than 30 brands and sub-brands across the GCC, Egypt, and Jordan. Under his leadership and guidance, Almarai has earned more than 50 global and regional awards, while consistently pushing boundaries in digital innovation and disrupting the industry with ahead-of-the-curve investments.
Sleiman has pioneered emerging platforms, including gaming integrations, AI-powered content creation, and next-generation engagement strategies that have established new benchmarks for the region.
A strong believer in the value of research, his approach balances technological innovation with unwavering consumer-centricity. He believes that the most sophisticated tools must always serve genuine audience needs.
RAPID FIRE WITH SLEIMAN
A classic marketing trick that never gets old?
Listen to your consumer … always.
Most overrated buzzword in marketing?
Artificial intelligence (AI).
Favourite nostalgic ad from your childhood?
Yes, 3 in 1. A classic Lebanese ad from the 1980s.
One marketing principle you’ll never compromise on?
Consumer-centricity.
Book, podcast or show you recommend to everyone?
Diary of a CEO.
Biggest lesson you’ve learnt in your career?
When there is a will, there is a way.
What you’d be doing if not marketing?
Marketing. It’s one of those rare times when I didn’t have a plan B.
One thing your colleagues would be surprised to know about you?
I studied to be a financial auditor.
The future of marketing in one word?
Positively unpredictable.
What is the top challenge the marketing industry needs to address on priority?
Sleiman: The top priority challenge is preserving human creativity and critical thinking as AI transforms all aspects of the marcomms industry. While AI empowers content creation and accelerates execution, the industry risks commoditisation – where everyone has access to the same tools producing similar outputs. The pressing question is: How do we protect diversity in advertising from sliding into a homogenised, soulless pursuit of efficiency?
To ensure that brands don’t sacrifice distinctive voice and emotional resonance for efficiency, the industry should adopt a human-AI framework of collaboration that enhances rather than diminishes creative excellence, while addressing concerns about IP and
brand differentiation.
Here, marketers must redefine creativity’s value by maintaining the role of conceptual thinking, cultural insight, and authentic storytelling that AI can’t replicate.
What do you consider your top achievement over the past 12 months?
Sleiman: In the past year, I led a mission to reposition Almarai, a 48-year-old name, ensuring it resonates with Saudi Arabia’s profound demographic and cultural shifts and leverages technology without compromising authenticity. Saudi society is younger and more diverse: 53 per cent of the population is under 24 and female workforce participation has nearly doubled. To bring this mission to life, we launched more than 80 campaigns across more than 30 major communications projects.
I also drove unprecedented digital innovation and initiated 10 disruptions in gaming; pioneering regional integrations with Roblox; Fortnite and EA FC; an AI-driven video campaign generating 1,600 unique assets, and a unique partnership with Shahid. For marketing leaders, taking disruptive measures with legacy brands like Almarai is both challenging and sensitive; but my strategy remains data-driven, navigating between cultural heritage and audience relevance.
Advice to the next generation of marketers?
Sleiman: It worries me to see young marketers who have lost their compass, drawn to anything labelled as technologically advanced or innovative, while forgetting that our role should remain consumer-centric and audience-relevant. We live in a time when it is easy to be mesmerised by sophisticated tools and overwhelmed by fleeting trends. I encourage young marketers to return to the core question: Does this genuinely serve our audience and consumers? Technology has always been there as an enabler, but the marketers who will thrive are those able to harness new capabilities while maintaining an unwavering focus on delivering real value to real people.
