Following their latest Agency of the Year win at the MENA Lynx, and best performing agency at Cannes Lions 2021, Impact BBDO continues its expansion with the appointments of Syed Azeem Afzal as CEO and Samantha Stuart-Palmer as COO.
The agency has managed to move from strength to strength, recently adding 50+ specialists from their team at Impact Proximity, to create one of the largest one-stop-shop agencies in the region while providing a complete end-to-end consultancy, creativity and delivery offering for their clients.
For Dani Richa, Chairman and Group CEO BBDO MEAPAK, constant evolution is a business necessity. Richa says: “Our job is to help our clients create demand for their brands and accelerate their digital transformation. To deliver on that, we need to be constantly evolving ahead of the change by curating and incubating talented people with tomorrow’s skillsets.”
With that, Syed Azeem Afzal has been announced as CEO, heading the new Impact BBDO Dubai, looking to continue his impressive track record of growth delivered at Impact Proximity.
Azeem Afzal started his career at Impact Proximity 18 years ago and grew from a developer to an account man, to a strategic thinker and now, a business leader. He has built and led 150+ multidisciplinary teams across a variety of international & regional clients at Impact Proximity.
“I am thrilled for this next step in building out our extraordinary depth of data & creative talent at a time when CX & personalized brand experience are primary strategic priorities for brands.” said Azeem Afzal.
“Aligning platforms, experiences and brands together is a natural evolution. It will allow us to deliver powerful creative solutions and demonstrable growth for clients current and future.”
Samantha Stuart-Palmer partners with Azeem as COO – a role in which her focus will be not only co-delivering the Agency’s ongoing growth agenda but also on designing and operationalizing the Agency’s dynamic client offerings.
Impact Proximity was the first digital agency in the region and has grown to become a key player in the industry over the last 20 years. For Impact Proximity, the focus will always be on “what’s next?” and will continue to invest in building specialism within customer experience and digital transformation.
Dani Richa, says “I am proud to task two of our Agency veterans to lead the ongoing evolution within the UAE group of 350 people, with Azeem as CEO and Samantha as COO. I’m confident that we have the team in place who will help us deliver on our ambitions for our clients.”
