Grey's leading figure returns
David Patton, President and CEO of Grey Group Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), announced today the appointment of Eric Hanna as CEO of Grey Group Middle East and Africa (MENA). Hanna will assume his new position in mid-November.
Eric Hanna will be based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He succeeds Philippe Skaff, who has decided to leave the company. This was announced by the agency on Thursday on Presseportal.ch. In the past two years, Eric Hanna was CEO of Mediacom Mena, a Group M company, where he built up the current Mediacom network in the region. Hanna takes over the leadership of Grey Group Mena, a network of agencies that counts more and more blue chip companies such as P&G, GSK, BAT and Jotun Paints among its clients.
Eric Hanna began his career at Grey in 1999 as Managing Director of the Dubai office. Under his leadership, the agency expanded its offering, tripled its turnover and established itself as the headquarters of the Gulf region, Grey continues. In 2002, Hanna was promoted to Regional Director, Grey Group MENA. He founded G2, Grey Group's activation marketing division, consolidated Mediacom Dubai as the region's hub and doubled Grey's revenue through various contracts. After being appointed Chief Operating Officer, Grey Group Gulf in 2005, Hanna led a restructuring of Grey Saudi Arabia's business. At the end of 2007, he took over as Chief Operating Officer, Grey Group Mna, where he was responsible for the expansion and growth of all agencies in the Middle East for two years.
Early in his career, Hanna held senior account management positions at Saatchi & Saatchi in Dubai. His first positions were with Leo Burnett in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, and Hanna was born in Senegal and graduated with a B.A. in Economics from the American University in Beirut.
