The IAB MENA conducted its General Assembly on Jan 27  2025, highlighting 2024 activities and achievements and outlining initial plans for 2026.  Attended by around 100 staff of member companies, the event also gave members the opportunity to discuss their thoughts, needs and provide suggestions for focus areas in the future.

Highlights from the 2026 plans include:

A focus on 4 main topics:

1. Ecosystem Health – eg: publishers, adfraud and more adspend insights
2. Adtech and AI – eg: Working closer with IAB TechLab
3. Streaming and Audio visual – eg: CTV, pDOOH and Audio
4. Getting closer to consumers – eg: Retail Media, outcomes measurement & content creators

Taskforces will be rearranged to deliver on these key focus areas while outputs aim to shift from information sharing to setting and aligning on standards, providing increased impact across the region. Watch out for more details soon.

Board Election Results:

In addition to the General Assembly, the results of the Board election for the 26/7 period was announced.  The new board consists of 15 companies from Agencies, Tech platforms and Publisher/Sales Houses.

Havas Middle East, MCN, Omnicom Media Group, Publicis Media Groupe, WPP Media

Amazon, Bytedance, Google, Snap, The Trade Desk

Multiply Media Group, Choueiri Group, MBC Group, Rotana Media Services, WGroup

In the first board meeting of their term, Michel Malkoun, Chief Growth Officer of Choueiri Group stepped down from the Chair role, having served the maximum allowed consecutive terms.  The new board representatives subsequently elected Nisrine Ghazal (RMS, Vice President -Digital) as Chair and Elie Milan (Chief Performance Officer) as Vice Chair.

For more, download the General Assembly presentation, exclusively available to members or contact us at [email protected].