Anghami today announced the appointment of Mary Ghobrial, Ex-Amazon Director Marketplace Expansion & Ex-CCO of SOUQ.com, to be the Company’s new Chief Operating and Strategy Officer. Ghobrial has over twenty-five years’ experience in building brands from source to leading positions. Throughout her career, Ghobrial has developed many new products within various sectors including fast-moving consumer goods, entertainment and online shopping.
“As Anghami prepares for listing on NASDAQ in the fourth quarter of 2021, we are happy to raise the bar with a hire like Ghobrial who will help us to scale and will bring many of the Amazon leadership skills. What is unique about her is that she also has the experience of a startup like SOUQ.com while being an extremely creative tech leader”, says Elie Habib, CTO and Co-Founder of Anghami.
With Amazon, Ghobrial was leading the fastest-growing initiative enabling Global Selling Partners to sell across the MENA region, contributing to millions of new selections to the customers in MENA. She also led the 3P business for Saudi Arabia, the largest marketplace in MENA. During her time with SOUQ.com as Chief Commercial Officer, Ghobrial initiated and built the regional retail across categories, all tier one vendors, advertising sales, peak events and brand marketing. She was instrumental in creating many of the events SOUQ.com became synonymous with in the region, including White Friday and Singles Day.
In 2017, Amazon acquired SOUQ.com in a landmark acquisition. At the time, SOUQ.com was present in three countries, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Egypt.
Prior to Amazon, Ghobrial led Business Development for Prodea systems with leading telcos in MENA, Turkey, Asia and Africa. Her principal role was negotiating with all major studios in Hollywood, Bollywood and the Arab world for the digital on demand rights for all new movies and original programming. She also helped build the Showtime brand equity across the region, leading the company’s advertising strategy and new product development. Ghobrial started her career with Procter and Gamble, launching global brands in Egypt from new product development, consumer insights, concept tests, pricing, packaging and brand building, to leading market shares.
“I am so happy to be back to the entertainment world, but more importantly to be part of building this amazing Arabic strong brand and scaling it further,” commented Ghobrial.
Mary holds a Master’s degree in Strategy and International Business from The Business School, City University U.K. and an Online Marketing degree from London Business School.
Earlier on August, 3 2021, Vistas Media Acquisition Company Inc. (NASDAQ:VMAC) and Anghami announced the submission of a confidential Draft Registration Statement on Form F-4 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with respect to their proposed business combination. The business combination is subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of VMAC’s stockholders, and is expected to be consummated in the fourth quarter of 2021. Upon the closing of the business combination, the Company will operate under the Anghami name and is expected to be listed on NASDAQ trading under the new symbol “ANGH”. For more information about the transaction, please visit https://vmac.media/.
