Trad Takes on New Role
Raja Trad has been named CEO of Publicis Communications Middle East. Trad, formerly head of Leo Burnett Group MENA, is now in charge of all Publicis Groupe’s regional advertising agencies – Publicis Middle East, Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi. Also falling under the Publicis Communications Middle East umbrella are MSL Group, Arc and Optimedia. > Philip F. Boustany has been promoted to Deputy General Manager at Boustany United Machineries Company (BUMC), the exclusive distributor of Toyota and Lexus in Lebanon. Prior to his new assignment, Boustany was the Managing Director of the After-sales division and gained both the respect and trust of Toyota Motor Corporation who recommended him for a higher leadership role. Philip Boustany is a graduate of Boston University School of Management, where he earned four majors in Finance, International Management, Business Law, and Entrepreneurship.
> Oculus, the Facebook-owned virtual reality company, has hired former Hulu SVP Eugene Wei as its new head of video. Wei was most recently head of product at Flipboard, and also spent seven years at Amazon beginning in the late ’90s. Wei’s video team is in charge of building the platform at Oculus that houses VR and 360 degree content from other creators, like Lebron James. Wei and his team focus a lot on 360 degree video, which Facebook is trying to push mainstream.
> Sriram Krishnan, the Facebook exec who’s been running the company’s ad network, has moved to Snapchat to boost its monetisation efforts. Krishnan joined Facebook in 2013 and helped launch the ad network, called Audience Network, in early 2014 so that Facebook could sell display and video ad space inside apps it doesn’t own. Krishnan is the latest in a number of high profile Snapchat hires to come from Facebook.