C2 COMMS A
Independent agency C2 Comms has named award-winning creative leader Pablo Maldonado as Executive Creative Director. With over 20 years of global experience and more than 500 industry awards, he will oversee the agency’s regional brand portfolio, drive culturally resonant creative work and support its next phase of growth across the Middle East.
Independent agency C2 Comms has added major creative firepower to its leadership bench with the appointment of Pablo Maldonado as Executive Creative Director, signalling a decisive step in its ambition to scale across the Middle East while defending its position as one of Dubai’s largest independent agencies. The move is being seen as both a creative and strategic investment, bringing into the business a leader known globally for pairing culturally resonant storytelling with hard-nosed business results and for consistently pushing the boundaries of what the modern agency model should look like.
Maldonado, whose appointment is effective immediately, arrives with over two decades of experience shaping high-visibility campaigns across major international markets including Argentina, Mexico, the United States and the UAE. Since 2019, he has been based in Dubai—an era that has seen the Middle East rapidly transform into an innovation-led communications hub, with agencies competing not only on creativity and craft but on integration, technology, data fluency and speed to execution. His move to C2 Comms reflects that shift: he is being tasked not only with elevating the agency’s creative output but with steering the evolution of how creativity itself operates as a driver of business in a region where category codes are frequently rewritten.
As Executive Creative Director, Maldonado will oversee C2 Comms’ cross-market brand portfolio across its network of offices, leading integrated teams tasked with delivering highly contextual, culturally relevant ideas designed to embed brands into daily life rather than contribute to advertising noise. The agency’s growth mandate is deeply tied to this philosophy, and the expectation now is that Maldonado will set the standard and pace for that ambition—pushing for bold thinking while reinforcing systems, methodologies and structure that can scale. The remit is clear: bigger creativity, stronger commercial outcomes and a work culture that thrives on experimentation and speed.
Roy Aftimos, CEO of C2 Comms, describes the appointment as a defining milestone in the agency’s trajectory. For Aftimos, Maldonado represents the rare fusion of artistic instinct and strategic discipline—something that agencies in the region increasingly need to attract multinational brands and win highly competitive pitches. “Pablo’s appointment represents a pivotal moment for our agency. His proven track record of creating culturally resonant work that drives business results, combined with his deep understanding of both global and regional markets, makes him the perfect leader to guide our creative vision. His obsession with turning insights into standout ideas aligns perfectly with our mission to deliver campaigns that cannot be overlooked by audiences or our industry,” he said.
That mix of global pedigree and regional fluency is substantiated by Maldonado’s career history. Before joining C2 Comms, he held leadership roles at Grey and Wunderman Thompson Dubai—both networks known for high-profile brand transformations and heavy investments in integrated solutions. Prior to moving to the Middle East, he shaped award-winning work at VML and Publicis in Argentina, and at DDB and MullenLowe in Mexico, contributing to iconic brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Burger King, IKEA, Volkswagen, Bose, GSK, Nestlé, LEGO, Dubai Tourism, Saudi Telecom, Lenovo and AB InBev, among many others. His experience across markets that are vastly different in maturity, segmentation and media behaviour now becomes an asset for C2 Comms, whose client roster demands constant contextual adaptability across the Middle East’s evolving consumer base.
Maldonado is widely recognised for his award-show record—more than 500 global accolades to date, including 16 Grand Prix and 80 Golds across the world’s biggest festivals. His achievements include back-to-back Cannes Lions Grand Prix wins, pencils at D&AD and The One Show, statues at Clio Awards, and a strong run at Effies and Dubai Lynx. His contributions are not only on the entry stage; he is a recurring member of global jury panels, including Cannes Lions 2022, Clio Health and The One Show, and most recently served as Jury President at White Square. These credentials support more than prestige—they are signals to talent and clients that C2 Comms intends to compete on the world stage, not simply within the region.
What may set this chapter apart is Maldonado’s stance on the evolution of creativity and technology. C2 Comms has openly embraced the rise of agentic artificial intelligence—AI systems that can collaborate, plan and execute work with greater autonomy. That direction aligns with Maldonado’s perspective on the industry’s immediate future. Rather than viewing AI as a threat to creative practice, he sees it as a catalyst for radical reinvention: a collaborator that can accelerate ideation, deepen strategy and free creatives to focus on what matters most—emotional connection, cultural understanding and conceptual audacity.
In his first statement following the appointment, Maldonado emphasised this alignment. “Beyond sharing Roy’s vision about Agentic AI and the questions our industry needs to start asking, I believe there’s no better time to be independent, authentic, and unapologetic. I’ve joined a team eager to explore what’s next, fully immersed in a collaborative culture and 100% ready to deliver fearless ideas,” he said. The message underscores the sense that C2 Comms wants to build independence not as a limitation but as a differentiator—an agency not bound by holding-company politics or legacy structures, free to evolve quickly and experiment without bureaucracy.
Industry observers note that Maldonado’s appointment comes at a time when independent agencies in the Middle East are gaining momentum, winning global assignments, attracting multinational talent and shaping campaigns that travel beyond the region. Clients are increasingly looking for faster creative cycles, greater cultural fluency and ideas anchored in lived insights, rather than one-size-fits-all global assets. This is an environment in which senior creative leadership becomes a strategic business driver, not simply a craft investment, and where creative ambition directly influences revenue scalability. C2 Comms’ decision to expand its leadership team with a globally recognised figure appears to be a calculated move in preparation for this next phase of competition.
For now, Maldonado’s mandate begins internally—with teams, processes, and the standards that define creative expectations. But its real impact will be measured externally: whether the agency can convert creativity into market advantage, whether it can help clients embody culture rather than comment on it, and whether it can produce work that becomes part of conversation and behaviour, not just media schedules.
If early signals are any indication, C2 Comms sees creativity not as a department but as the business itself. With Maldonado now leading that charge, the agency is positioning itself to shape what the next era of independent regional creativity might look like—braver, faster, culturally tuned, technologically forward and unapologetically competitive on the global stage.
