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.”