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Anghami snatches Mary Ghobrial, ex-Amazon Director Marketplace Expansion & ex-CCO of SOUQ.com to be the new Chief Operating and Strategy Officer.
Ghobrial has over twenty-five years’ experience in building brands from source to leading positions. Throughout her career, Ghobrial has developed many new products within various sectors including FMCG, entertainment and online shopping.
“As Anghami prepares for listing on NASDAQ in Q4 '21, we are happy to raise the bar with a hire like Ghobrial who will help us to scale and will bring many of the Amazon leadership skills. What is unique about her is that she also has the experience of a startup like Souq while being an extremely creative tech leader,” says Elie Habib, CTO and Co-founder of Anghami.
With Amazon, Ghobrial was leading the fastest growing initiatives enabling Global Selling Partners to sell across the MENA region, empowering the local entrepreneurs to sell globally, and contributing to millions of new selections to the Customer. She also leads the 3P business for Saudi Arabia, the largest marketplace in MENA. During her time with Souq.com as Chief Commercial Officer, Ghobrial initiated and built the regional retail across categories, all tier one vendors, advertising sales, peak events and brand marketing. She initiated the retail directly with brands from start to finish. She was also instrumental in creating many of the events Souq.com became synonymous with in the region, including White Friday and Singles Day.
In 2017, Amazon acquired Souq.com in a landmark acquisition. At the time, Souq.com was present in three countries, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Egypt.
Prior to Amazon, Ghobrial led Business Development for Prodea systems with leading telcos in MENA, Turkey, Asia and Africa. Her principal role was negotiating with all major studios in Hollywood, Bollywood and the Arab world for the digital on demand rights for all new Movies and original programming. She also helped build the Showtime brand equity across the region, leading the company’s advertising strategy and new product development. Ghobrial started her career with Procter and Gamble, launching global brands in Egypt from new product development, consumer insights, concept tests, pricing, packaging and brand building, to leading market shares.
“I am so happy to be back to the entertainment world, but more importantly to be part of building this amazing Arabic strong brand and scaling it further,” comments Ghobrial.
Mary holds a Master's degree in Strategy and International Business from The Business School, City University UK; and Online Marketing degree from London Business School.
