Following their latest Agency of the Year win at the MENA Lynx, and best performing agency at Cannes Lions 2021, Impact BBDO continues to reinforce the team 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.
Commenting on the development, Dani Richa, Chairman and Group CEO BBDO MEAPAK, said, “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. 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.”
On taking up the new role, Azeem Afzal said, “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. 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.”
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.
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.
About Impact BBDO
Part of the global BBDO network, IMPACT BBDO is a leading regional marketing communications group operating across the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan for close to 50 years. Established in 1971, IMPACT BBDO offers comprehensive and integrated marketing communication solutions, covering a wide and prestigious base of global, regional and local brands. IMPACT BBDO prides itself on contributing to BBDO’s worldwide creative reputation and has consistently been highly ranked in regional and international competitions and was recently named Agency of the Year at the Dubai Lynx advertising awards for 3 of the last 4 years as well being named Cannes Lions’ most creative agency in the Middle East & Africa. The group employs more than 1,000 people delivering great work that works for our clients.
