Interview with Laura Chaibi

This week we met with Laura Chaibi, Head of Market Intelligence and Syndicate Digital Data at the Middle East Broadcasting Center.

What’s your golden rule?
In honour of Grace Murray Hopper (surely the first female data scientist!) - It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission

How can marketers be braver?
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. You have to be very brave as a marketer and business to challenge culture and cultural norms as well as cultural stigma. Transferring ownership and control of a brand into the hands of your consumers exponentially releases it and is often where cultural value creation from the brand is so powerful, when consumers make brands their own and become the power of distribution. To do this a marketer needs to very brave and confident enough that the brands they represent are purposeful and defined enough to be released on this level.

What is your most hated business expression?
The word hate is far too strong! That can’t be done… is often what negatively motivates me.

What's the biggest risk you've taken in your career?
Moving to the Middle East!

Which leader do you most admire and why?
Jack Ma, because his outward facing business position is full of championing the little guy, and his internal business position is completely shrewd. Having worked for Yahoo which owned a 43% stake of Alibaba prior to it going public, I had good visibility into the rise of Alibaba and how it broke Yahoo. This business is a disruptor and more to come, and the public position and business position are not the same thing!

What’s your favourite word?
Why? Not sure if it’s my favourite, I’m more known for saying it!

Tell us a secret
Mobile internet and access to Wi-Fi fundamentally and irreversibly changed media and marketing. I call the next generation of youth: Generation Wi-Fi. The secret? I know the first live broadcast TV show streamed on a mobile phone, and how it performed – fact not found on Google – message me for the secret, it will be a defining moment in history, like when the real ecommerce revolution started with Stelios (surely not a secret?)

Follow Laura Chaibi on Twitter @Laura Chaibi