CAMPAIGN MEDIA FACES TO WATCH 2019 – ALEXANDRU GRAMA, 25, SENIOR MEDIA PLANNER, INITIATIVE
Nominated by Saad Nahas, digital director, Initiative MENA
“Despite being with Initiative for just over a year, Alexandru has taken operational ownership of the agency’s largest account, building deep connections with client teams and meeting even the tightest campaign deadlines. His unflinching work ethic has won him praise at the highest levels of the agency and client. And all this whilst successfully leading on the implementation of a cornerstone brand safety and optimisation framework for 2019. Yet what has cemented his nomination is the quality of the thinking, planning and execution of the work – the kind of person everyone wants to work with and every client wants on their team.”
Career path
“Three and a half years have passed since I first set foot in a media agency. I have had the privilege of working with established names in varied industries, from automotive and entertainment to FMCG and telecommunications, at every stage of the media-planning journey.”
“Of all those experience, Mercedes-Benz allowed me to truly understand what niche and luxurious branding means within a cluttered space where everybody demands their voice to be heard; and Etisalat showed me how such a gargantuan player in the market can dictate and change the course of an industry as a whole.”
Guiding principles
Two pillars guide keep me afloat amidst the agitated seas of high competition and political reverberations: knowledge and professional integrity.
Knowledge should be the foundation of any career and its constant guiding light. It should be one’s individual responsibility to gather, nourish and structure one’s thinking within and outside of the working environment. Secondly, one should be against any activity to influence one’s professional standing that does not relate directly to the work and the results one produces. In the hierarchical world of accomplishments and expectations, nothing speaks louder and clearer than hard, quality work.
