Weber Shandwick

Weber Shandwick MENAT — the regional brand stretches the acronym to include Turkey — is IPG's principal PR network in the Gulf. The agency runs out of Dubai under Ziad Hasbani, with Ghaleb Zeidan heading the UAE offices, and reaches twelve offices and affiliates across eleven markets in the wider region.

The shop has earned its standing in the regional awards cycle and then defended it. The EMEA SABRE Middle East Consultancy of the Year and the MEPRA Agency of the Year sat on the shelf going into 2024, and the firm followed up with sixteen MEPRA wins that year — the third-highest agency count, behind only Memac Ogilvy and Gambit Communications. The TASAWAR work for Snap Inc. took the rare double of Best Fashion and Best Technology Gold, and Careem Kuwait took Best Consumer Services Gold.

Hasbani has also been publicly recognized for what he has done with the bench. He was named Best PR Professional in the Middle East at the PR Week Global Awards, and the firm has been the Diamond Partner of the MEPRA Awards for three consecutive years — the highest institutional sponsorship rung in regional PR.

Where Weber Shandwick tends to be considered alongside the WPP shops: large multi-market corporate mandates, financial communications, integrated reputation programs, and the kind of consumer-meets-technology brief that the TASAWAR work modeled. The roster mixes platform clients (Snap, Careem) with the broader corporate and financial bench typical of the network.