Middle Easts Most Influential Marketers of 2022_Profile Archives

Joanne de Guzman Rico: How UAE’s Marketing Trailblazer Launched and Turned-around Brands

Joanne de Guzman Rico, Salma Rehabilitation Hospital’s Head of Marketing, exemplifies perseverance and empowerment. Joanne has conquered several challenges since her humble beginnings in Manila to become a global marketing professional as she brand-leads a fast-growing rehabilitation unit under SEHA, which comprises the largest network of government medical facilities in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

From Academic Achievements to Professional Success

Joanne’s story is one of grit and academic excellence. Recognizing the value of a solid educational foundation, she worked hard to succeed despite financial constraints. She overcame the restrictions of poverty by earning scholarships through her dedication and hard work, and she embraced a future full of possibilities.

Joanne pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, graduating Magna Cum Laude from the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of the Philippines – Diliman after graduating as Valedictorian with several academic and special distinctions. Her commitment to excellence laid the groundwork for her exceptional career journey.

Rapid Growth in the Marketing Industry

Joanne’s corporate career started when she joined Globe Telecom, where she worked as a Sales Administrative Associate and then as a Customer Service Associate, earning the company’s honors and special distinction. Her marketing career took off when she joined Ministop Philippines as a Franchise Marketing Officer, where she received the coveted Rookie of the Year Award in just six months despite having no formal schooling in the field.

Joanne’s professional performance caught the attention of the higher-ups at the age of 23, and she was promoted to Advertising and Promotions Manager. Under her leadership, she managed a team of seven and spearheaded marketing strategies and campaigns for the company’s chain of over 250 stores. Mentored by one of the Philippines’ business tycoons, Joanne underwent training at Ministop’s headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, where she mastered the core brand strategy and successfully implemented it in the local market.

Pioneering New Frontiers in Healthcare Marketing

In 2009, Joanne broke new ground as the first Filipino woman to venture into healthcare marketing in Doha, Qatar, joining Al-Ahli Hospital as the organization’s Marketing Executive. Her drive and expertise were further recognized when she joined Burjeel Hospital in Abu Dhabi, UAE, as part of its pioneer team. Charged with launching the brand and expanding its market share within the capital and beyond, Joanne single-handedly power-moved all marketing campaigns across various platforms.

Her dedication and contributions did not go unnoticed. Joanne was honored as the Burjeel Star Employee in 2013 and received further recognition during Burjeel’s 2nd Annual Day in 2014. In 2015, she was promoted to Senior Marketing Executive, and a year later, she became the Assistant Marketing Manager, overseeing PR communications and corporate events verticals.

Rebounding Healthcare Institutions

Joanne’s skills piqued the interest of NMC Healthcare, one of the UAE’s leading private healthcare organizations, in April 2018. As Marketing and Sales Manager, she was instrumental in turning around Bareen International Hospital, which had been in the red for three years. Joanne’s strategic marketing approach and relentless commitment to deliver results catapulted Bareen to its breakthrough growth in terms of volume, revenue, and profitability. Due to this, NMC stepped up business expansion plans, acquired more medical centers in the emirate, and placed them under Bareen team’s supervision. The Bareen Cluster expanded from one facility to eight in a short period of time, strengthening its place as a key player in the healthcare industry. Joanne’s remarkable achievements propelled her to the position of Cluster Head of Marketing and Sales, where she optimized the brand positioning, increased brand awareness, grew brand loyalty, and increased footfall, revenue, and profitability for each medical facility.

In August 2022, Joanne joined PureHealth and SEHA’s Salma Rehabilitation Hospital as Head of Marketing.

Championing Education and Empowerment

Joanne’s career is defined not just by her professional achievement, but also, by her profound determination to make a positive impact in the community. She has become a strong advocate for children’s right to education after personally seeing the value of academic access, particularly for impoverished children.

Joanne has been a steadfast supporter of World Vision Philippines for 18 years, assisting several children, families, and communities in underprivileged parts of her home country. During her time at Ministop Philippines, she introduced the Child Sponsorship Program to JG Summit employees and Ministop franchisees, and established the World Vision Coin Bank campaign across all locations. Her passion to help led her to arrange and conduct pro bono events for the community. She is now an advocate and spokesperson for World Vision Philippines on a global scale.

Women’s Beacon of Inspiration

Joanne wrote a book chapter on her experience to inspire other Filipino women to rise above obstacles and break glass ceilings. Her chapter in the Foundation for Filipina Women’s Network’s “Disrupt 4.0 Filipina Women: BEING – The Fourth Book on Leadership” is a chronicle of her challenging journey. The book was launched in the prestigious Gremio Literario in Lisbon, Portugal in November 2022.

Joanne has received numerous awards and recognitions for her outstanding achievements throughout the course of her 18-year career. Notably, The Filipino Times named her Marketing and Advertising Professional of the Year in 2017. In addition, she was named a Thought Leader in Illustrado’s 300 Most Influential Filipinos in the Gulf, Legacy Edition in 2020.

The Foundation for Filipina Women’s Network named her one of the Most Influential Filipina Women in the WorldTM in 2021, making her the only awardee from the Middle East. She was awarded Outstanding Leadership at the Health 2.0 Conference in Dubai the following year.

Joanne was most recently recognized in the field of marketing in 2023 at the Marketing 2.0 Conference for her extraordinary accomplishments spanning international markets over the previous decade.

Joanne’s journey has not been easy, as she has navigated obstacles and broken stereotypes based on nationality and gender norms in the workplace. Equipped with her basic principles of faith, passion, grit, and resilience, Joanne rose to the challenge and has emerged as a trailblazer, placing her at a distinguished position in the international arena. Her substantial accomplishments in the workplace and significant contributions in the community inspire those who want to make a difference.

Balaji Vaidyanathan: Spearheading Strategic Marketing Initiatives

Balaji Vaidyanathan is an integrated marketing specialist with 2 decades of experience in B2B and Consumer Marketing. As Director and Head of Marketing for Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEEMEA) at Franklin Templeto n based out of Dubai, Balaji is responsible for building the marketing value proposition, brand, and digital presence, developing the strategic footprint across CEEMEA, performance managing regional teams, focusing on both institutional and retail businesses and driving marketing efforts for global and EMEA strategic projects, amongst other initiatives. Prior to this role, Balaji was with Franklin Templeton in their India office, leading all brand, advertising, investor education, and several other initiatives.

“When I joined Franklin Templeton in India in 2010, I was drawn to it because of its well-respected and established global brand, remarkable heritage, work culture, and other aspirational facets,”- Balaji recalled. “Coming from an Indian company, I saw the opportunity to grow through global exposure and the chance to work with teams across regions and functions. Having studied various aspects of the firm, I believed I had many ideas I could bring to the table, and I sensed that these would be well received.”

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Franklin Templeton is a global leader in asset management with more than seventy years of experience worldwide. With 1300+ investment professionals spread across 23 countries, Franklin Templeton manages an AUM of $1.3tn, diversified across asset classes, geography, and client type.

Before joining the mutual fund industry, Balaji started his career as a group management trainee with the Aditya Birla Group, where he moved into a marketing role after an initial stint in sales. He was responsible for advertising & brand building, new product launches, managing the creative and media planning agencies, including ATL, communication, sales promotion, etc. After close to 5 years with Aditya Birla Group, Balaji worked with Lotus India Asset Management (now Invesco Mutual Fund) and then Edelweiss Financial Services in various capacities in the domain of marketing.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, London, Balaji holds an MBA in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. Additionally, he also has a diploma in Digital Marketing from NIIT and the Digital Marketing Institute.

Over the years, Balaji has become an angel investor and a mentor to various- start-ups in the space of deep tech, EdTech, health tech, and sustainability. He is also a part of the Advisory Board (Middle East) for the global CMO Council, which presently has more than 15000 members from senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries.

Changing Investors’ Mindset

Along with his team, Balaji is constantly striving to create awareness about the benefits of long-term investing. Their initiatives seek to equip investors with an understanding of the importance of planning for their long-term goals, particularly retirement, and make them appreciate the benefits of starting early, investing regularly, and staying invested for the long term to benefit from the power of compounding.

“In this era of easy credit and instant gratification, where everyone seems to be in the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) mode, we need to try to inculcate better savings and investing habits,” Balaji explained. “This entails first setting income aside for investments and then spending what is left rather than investing what is left over after spending. Wealth creation is making one’s money work hard for you, which can only be done through discipline, long-term commitment, and astute planning.”

Key Trends

Balaji feels this is a fascinating and dynamic time due to rapid and exponential technological developments and the constant evolution of customer preferences and expectations. Thanks to AI, data, and analytics, predicting patterns in customer behavior has become much more straightforward, and data-driven marketing strategies have become less of a gamble than before. However, one can’t undermine the contribution of creativity, agility, and innovation to the mix.

A few of the marketing trends Balaji envisage revolves around using web 3.0 and tapping into the potential of the metaverse. “As customer journeys evolve, we will see more brands focusing on an omnichannel approach to influence customers’ decision-making processes, and products and services will offer more hybrid and cohesive customer experiences. We will have to face the challenge that brand loyalty will become a fading concept, and a customer is only as loyal as her last experience with the brand.”- he explained.

Additionally, he feels, Regionalization is another major emerging trend as targeting tier-1 audiences gets saturated. This, alongside deep customization, will be a great brand differentiator, and personalization will become the key to hearts.

Also, User-generated content has ushered in a new era that closes the gap between creators of content and their audiences. As a result, audiences now seek to interact with content and content creators and with each other. This tests a brand’s authenticity like never before but also opens the opportunity to collect valuable insights into target audiences and their preferences.

“From a marketer’s perspective, these are exciting times ahead, and one will need to consistently up his or her game to stay ahead of the curve and ensure their brand is able to become the preferred go-to brand for their customers.”– said Balaji.

Awards and Accolades

Over the years, several prestigious institutions and peers have acknowledged Balaji with various awards and recognition for his work. As a marketing leader, Balaji puts his heart and soul into every campaign he has spearheaded or partnered with, and he always feels a great sense of accomplishment when they meet their mark or help him learn new things.

“At the end of the day, it’s always about the trust you built for your brand amongst customers, the knowledge that your work has helped improve people’s financial futures and helped investors understand the importance of financial planning/ planning for one’s goals,”- he explained. “That is the ultimate satisfaction – when you see the customer had been able to reach her goals in the long term because she believed in your brand and narrative.”

Marwa Kaabour: Redefining Leadership

Meet Marwa Kaabour, the Group Head of Marketing and Corporate Communication of Al Masaood LLC, one of the most prominent family-owned business conglomerates in Abu Dhabi, which formed concurrently with the UAE’s union back in 1971. The group provides comprehensive solutions to its customers across 18 different industry sectors through its diverse activities and divisions. As an organization, Al Masaood has always aimed to serve and support the growth and development of the UAE, specifically in Abu Dhabi.

Being Abu Dhabi’s largest family business, the Al Masaood Group has pioneered the fields of automotive, transport, power, and industrial, constantly growing and developing the country for more than five decades. The group’s flagship company Al Masaood Automobiles is a leader in Abu Dhabi’s automotive market. Its Power Division has long been supporting the power, marine and renewables industry in Abu Dhabi. From the very early days of importing the first gas turbine and constructing the first water desalination plant, the group has always supported Abu Dhabi’s economic development.

The Steadfast Leader

Marwa has been a part of the marketing and communication industry for nearly three decades in the Middle East. She started her career with organizations like Leo Burnett and Impact BBDO. However, she soon decided to switch to the client side and started helping organizations build their marketing and corporate communication functions. During her long and illustrious career, Marwa has helped create and manage strategic marketing communications for several international and regional firms, including government entities of the region. Marwa’s experience includes her work in energy, manufacturing, aviation, automotive, FMCG, food & beverage, construction, and retail industries.

A graduate of the American University of Sharjah’s undergraduate and post-graduate programs, Marwa holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Management and an Executive MBA. She also holds certifications from the Center for Sustainability Excellence CSE in Brussuels as a Certified Sustainability Marketer and the Institute of Digital Marketing in Ireland as a Certified Digital Marketer.

Greatest Achievement

In her current role, Marwa started with communication development from scratch. Later she moved into the overhaul and upscaling of the marketing delivery. Marwa feels her most significant achievement was forming a team of marketing and communications titans who eventually worked to improve brand equity and have tremendously grown the company’s marketing and PR value. Even during the pandemic, Al Masaood LLC’s brands experienced the greatest growth, with its PR value rising by over 700 percent and its sales increasing by six folds.

An Ever-Evolving Industry

As a veteran of the industry, Marwa would like much more cohesion and harmony among marketing and communication practitioners. Thanks to the abundance of data, the lines between marketing and communication practices have been blurred completely, and now the primary challenge is to know how to best leverage the data to help a brand thrive. Marwa believes introducing efficiencies across both disciplines is of utmost importance. Presently marketers are being challenged, and their roles are becoming extremely complex as they shoulder the additional responsibilities of business transformations. So, present-day marketing and communication practitioners need to start a brand’s transformation from the inside by developing performance-driven cultures and then transitioning it to reflect on the outside.

A Different Organization

Growth is an ongoing objective for everyone at Al Masaood. It needs continuous work and transformation to keep up with the changing market trends and customer preferences. As a part of the group’s customer-centric ethos, Al Masaood always looks to provide value-driven experiences and services to its clients and customers. As a company, Al Masaood places a strong emphasis on building long-standing and fruitful relationships with all of its stakeholders. Its vision of growing together, delivering value, and embracing heritage set the group apart from its competitors.

Picture of the Future

Since its inception Al Masaood has faithfully served the UAE across the fields it operates in. For over the last five decades, the group has moved in synergy with the UAE, and now as it embarks on the next 50 years journey, it is aligned with the country’s vision by continuously diversifying and investing in the economy’s key strategic sectors.

Marwa says, “Al Masaood’s future plans also consider the pressing environmental factors around us. As such, we have developed a strategy that places sustainability and innovation at the core. From electrification to renewables, clean energy, diversification, and customer centricity, we’ve got a busy agenda at hand.”