Seeing Is Believing

My experience in the Middle East taught me that ambitious marketing is rarely about having all the answers. It is about listening carefully, starting before everything is perfect and making value visible through results.

1. How do you recognise an opportunity before you feel ready?

My journey began with one of Europe's leading strategy consultancies. One of the partners approached me and asked whether I could build the firm's Middle East marketing and communications function from scratch. My first reaction was pride and excitement and then followed by adrenalin and doubt. Could I really build a function for a business whose consultants expected every detail to be precise and defensible? Where marketing and communications were mostly understood as a way to secure press coverage rather than as a strategic function that can build reputation, strengthen relationships and support growth?

I accepted before I had every answer. That decision taught me that confidence does not always come before action. Sometimes it grows because we act.

2. How do you create internal buy-in when people do not yet see the value?

At the time, 16 partners and around 120 employees worked in the Middle East. Marketing and communications had largely been managed from Munich, with limited local support.

Building the team was only one part of the challenge. I also had to build understanding for this ‘new’ function, trust and new habits. That required patience, a lot of energy and the willingness to explain the value of marketing repeatedly, without becoming discouraged when progress was slow.

The goal was not to win an argument. It was to make the contribution of marketing impossible to ignore.

3. Why should marketers prove value through action?

Seeing is believing. Rather than only describing what marketing could do, we created practical experiences that demonstrated it.

We developed individual social media coaching for partners, adapting the support to each person's confidence, expertise and goals. What began as a regional initiative later became a global standard across all our offices.

The lesson was simple: internal buy-in grows when colleagues can see how an idea helps them work more effectively, generate new leads and turn those opportunities into real business.

4. When is the right time to try a different format?

For COP28, my team wanted to create a podcast. The global process looked lengthy and expensive, and headquarters was not initially convinced.

So we built a small, credible version ourselves. We rented a studio in Dubai, developed the content internally and invited partners to take part. We did not wait for a perfect global production model. We started, learned and improved.

That regional experiment became the firm's global podcast.

5. What happens when local teams are trusted to lead globally?

By the time COP28 arrived, the team had earned enough credibility to lead the global campaign from the Middle East, working closely with headquarters. We achieved strong organic visibility, including a higher share of voice than a competitor who sponsored COP28.

The regional business also grew from 16 to 26 partners and from around 120 to 380 employees over two years, with the communications team growing alongside it. The numbers were great, but what really mattered was having gained their trust. Partners had seen that locally relevant marketing could produce real business value.

Three takeaways

•    Ambition often begins with accepting an opportunity before you feel completely ready

•    Internal buy-in is built through visible action, not repeated explanation

•    Regional insight can become global influence when local teams are trusted to experiment and lead