Burson

Burson is the post-merger WPP PR network — formed in July 2024 by combining BCW and Hill & Knowlton into a single global firm of around six thousand staff across forty-three markets. In the Gulf, it now houses what were the regional operations of two of the four largest networks, plus the long-standing Asda'a brand that BCW had absorbed in 2008.

The proposition is scale. Burson can field a healthcare specialist out of New York, a public affairs lead out of Brussels, and an Arabic-language crisis team out of Riyadh on the same mandate. For corporate and sovereign clients running multi-market programs, that integrated bench is the case for hiring the network over a boutique. The 2024 MEPRA Awards already produced confirmation that the integrated team can win the work — Gold in the Best Government Communications and Public Affairs category, plus Best Communicator of the Year for Iman Isa.

Two things to watch. First, the cultural absorption of Asda'a's research-led, Gulf-native posture into a larger international PR brand — Asda'a's franchise was built on local trust, and that does not survive automatic centralization. Second, the Hill & Knowlton sub-brand persists for clients where conflicts require a wall, which gives Burson rare latitude to staff competing accounts.

The September 2025 hire of Fouad Bou Mansour as MENAT CEO signals the next chapter. Bou Mansour comes from the Saudi Tourism Authority by way of Impact BBDO Group UAE — a sovereign-and-network double background, which is the right CV for a region where the largest mandates increasingly involve both. Sana Ali Khan and Claire Lawson, also brought in during 2025, give Burson Dubai a client-services and account-leadership bench it had been visibly rebuilding since the merger.