MCN – The Middle East Communications Network held a Leadership Conference in Dubai on April 9 and 10, 2019. The conference theme was ‘Fit for the Future’. It was attended by 170+ leaders across MCN’s 15 agency brands from the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, as well as leaders from McCann Worldgroup in New York.
The two-day event focused on meaningfully harnessing the power of AI, data and technology to positively impact clients’ businesses and outcomes. It also highlighted the expectations and behaviors of today’s new generations – the millennials and the powerful new consumers in Generation Z – and what they potentially mean to clients’ brands, and to the work the agencies produce for the brands they are entrusted with.
Keynote speeches were delivered by globally acclaimed external speakers from the US and Europe, MCN leaders and multiple panelists. Ghassan Harfouche, who leads MCN as Group CEO led the main session – setting goals and priorities for the times ahead and inspiring the audience to ‘accelerate true transformation’.
The interactive sessions engaged the attendees on key markers that every business, every client wants from their marketing partners today: Real time response, faster asset generation, the ability to consistently deliver campaigns that require a wide range of capabilities and skills, strategically sound omnichannel marketing, better engaging clients’ customers and increasing life-time-value, true ROI, and a common ask in today’s environment – more for less. 
The conference was frameworked on delivering world class solutions to those challenges. MCN’s go-to-market strategy uses IPG’s proprietary ‘Open Architecture’ platform which empowers its agencies to deliver effective, efficient and flexible solutions for clients’ brands.
Commenting on the two-day conference Ghassan Harfouche said “Getting fit for the future means being prepared for the complexities that trends in data and technology, consumer behavior, fragmentation and convergence bring to our industry. Now more than ever, we need to think ahead of our times, because our business environment is changing at warp speed. Over the two days, we learnt a lot, were inspired, energized, and had fun interacting. And, we reiterated the real power that the dynamics of our group of agencies and our people have in this region.”