An academic by day, Dr. Maisah Sobaihi is an assistant professor at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She is best known, however, for her work in theatre and the arts across Saudi Arabia and around the world, and is widely respected as a contemporary voice for women.

Her affinity for the arts began at a very young age. As a college student, she directed amateur productions of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion at the King Abdul Aziz University. More recently, her one-woman show Head Over Heels in Saudi Arabia, drew rave reviews in both Saudi Arabia and New York.

Other career highlights include co-hosting a series focused on Muslim women around the world, serving as a Fulbright scholar at New York University, leading drama and theatre workshops and representing young Saudi and Arab women at international and regional forums. Her lifelong goal remains to encourage and inspire young Saudi women to achieve their full potential.

Dr. Maisah has a doctorate in English Literature from King’s College, the University of London, and a Bachelor’s degree from the King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia.

Mohamed Ali Alabbar is the founding member and Chairman of Emaar Properties PJSC since the company’s inception in July 1997.

He is currently spearheading Emaar’s high-profile global expansion in 36 markets and chairs John Laing Homes in the USA and Hamptons International in the UK as well as a joint venture with Italy’s Giorgio Armani to set up a global Armani-branded luxury hotel and resort chain.

Mr Alabbar is also chairman of the Bahrain-based Al Salam Bank, an Islamic bank with operations across the MENA region.

Mr Alabbar is a member of the Dubai Executive Council and serves on the board of directors of the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), the investment arm of the Government of Dubai and the body responsible for managing the emirate’s assets in the financial, transportation, industrial, energy, real estate and leisure sectors. He is also a Board Member of Noor Investment Group, an affiliate of Dubai Group, the leading diversified financial company of Dubai Holding.

A sought-after speaker at international forums and on broadcast networks worldwide, Mr. Alabbar is an articulate spokesman for the region’s economic renaissance – led by Dubai and firms such as Emaar Properties. In recognition of his vision and achievements, FDi magazine, published by the Financial Times Group, recently named Mr. Alabbar “Middle East Personality of the Year.” Arabian Business, the leading regional business magazine, ranked him sixth in its March 2008 list of the 100 Most Influential Arabs in the World. Fortune magazine, in their issue of December 2007, named Mr Alabbar among the top 30 in power positions globally.

A graduate in Finance and Business Administration from Seattle University in the United States, Mr Alabbar works closely with regional NGOs, and is especially committed to the cause of educational reform. A keen sportsman, he is Chairman of the UAE Golf Association, and was recently named among the top golfing personalities in the world by Golf World.

Mr Alabbar was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in humanities from his alma mater, Seattle University, in recognition of his notable achievements in business, economic development and public service in Dubai and throughout the Middle East region.

Mark Penn is worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller and President of Penn, Schoen and Berland.  As CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Mr. Penn oversees a global network of 94 offices and 1600 employees that brings world-class public relations to companies around the world. As President of PSB, a position he has held since 1975 when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, Mr. Penn focuses on providing research-based communications strategy to political figures, corporations and crisis situations.

Mr. Penn has been called “Master of the Message” by Time Magazine; “The king of polls” by the London Times; an “incandescent intellect” by the New York Times. On his wall are notes saying “you were brilliant” from Tony Blair after his historic third win and “thanks” from Bill Clinton after his impeachment acquittal along with photos of Penn working with CEOs including Bill Gates and Bill Ford, Jr. The Washington Post, in “Politics and Policy by the Numbers” summed up his influence in the White House and the corporate boardroom as a “unique vantage point: adviser to the preeminent innovator of the past decade in the realm of politics, Bill Clinton, and the preeminent innovator in the realm of business and technology, Bill Gates.”

The techniques applied to these political and corporate battles were honed from early major corporate experiences with AT&T, Texaco and others. In the “Guru of Small Things” the New York Times explains how he has combined innovative techniques of micro-targeting, issue-based messaging and visual message testing to win major corporate, marketing and political battles.

Today, Mr. Penn serves as strategic consultant to several Fortune 500 companies and CEOs on a wide range of image, branding and corporate reputation issues. His client relationships include Ford Motor Company, Merck, Verizon, BP, McDonald’s and Microsoft. He has been a key adviser to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer since 1998, helping Microsoft affect a complete corporate turnaround from anti-trust scandal to Most Trusted Company (Wall Street Journal).

Mr. Penn has helped to elect over 25 leaders in the United States, Asia, Latin America and Europe, including serving as chief adviser to President Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential election and to Hillary Rodham Clinton through her Senate and presidential races. About his work for her the Washington Post writes, “Penn also has everything that Clinton would want in a senior consultant: undisputed brilliance and experience.” Previously, he was as advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair, helping achieve an unprecedented third term win for Labour in the United Kingdom.

Born in Dubai in 1978, Mohammed Saeed Harib, like many of his contemporaries, was raised on a diet of American and Japanese cartoons. Later, as an undergraduate at Boston’s Northeastern University specializing in Animation, he embarked on a new mission: to create living, breathing local cartoon characters that young and old Emiratis and Arabs could relate to.

On his return to Dubai, he joined the marketing department of Dubai Media City, the city’s media free zone, and worked on a number of high-profile projects including the Dubai International Film Festival and the Ibda’a Media Students Award. He went on to serve as art director for the city’s Technology and Media Free Zone Authority, parent company of the Dubai Media, Internet and Studio City free zones.

In 2005, Harib left TECOM to follow his dream and established Lammtara Productions. Soon after, he announced his first animation project, Freej (Neighborhood), an animated situation comedy celebrating the culture and traditions of the UAE. Told through the eyes of four Emirati grandmothers living in a rustic neighborhood in the heart of modern Dubai, Freej was an instant hit when it debuted in September 2006.

More than 100 young Emirati volunteers from across the nation’s universities worked on the series’ research and development. Freej, now in its third season, has been broadcast across the GCC countries, and has a strong following among UAE nationals.

In April 2008, Harib featured in the Arabian Business magazine’s list of the world’s most influential Arabs, placed at No. 33.

Hassan M. Fattah is the deputy editor of The National, the national daily newspaper published in Abu Dhabi. He oversees daily coverage, editorial strategy and strategic planning for the paper.

For over a decade, Mr. Fattah has covered the changing dynamics of the region, paying particular attention to demographic shifts and youth culture in the Middle East and its impact on the region's politics.
Prior to joining The National, Mr. Fattah was the Middle East Correspondent for the New York Times, based in Dubai, with responsibility for covering the entire region outside Iraq and Israel/Palestine.

In 2003, he co-founded Iraq Today, Iraq’s first post-Saddam English-language newspaper, written and edited by Iraqis. As editor, Mr Fattah turned the venture into an internationally recognized publication before its closure a year later due to security concerns. In 2004, Mr. Fattah also helped found Aswat Al Iraq, Iraq’s first independent, non-governmental news exchange, funded by the United Nations and focused on developing a new generation of Iraqi journalists.
He has served as a correspondent for Time, and his work has appeared in The Economist, Prospect magazine and The New Republic, among other international publications.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, to Iraqi parents, Mr. Fattah was raised between Lebanon, Jordan and the United States. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and a Masters in Science from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Sunil John has been at the heart of the public relations business in the Middle East for nearly two decades. During this time he has shaped ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller to be the benchmark of public relations consultancy, advising regional governments, international brands and global and local companies.

Sunil has been instrumental in creating the specialised practice team structure in ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller with six areas of expertise – corporate affairs, financial communications, consumer marketing, healthcare, technology and public affairs – all successfully building blue-chip client businesses in the region and internationally.

As a former journalist and longtime strategic PR consultant, Sunil’s role is managing the company’s operations across 11 wholly owned offices and 10 affiliates in the Middle East, including a network of 160 communications consultants.

The success of the company has been widely acknowledged, notably in 2006 when it was named “PR Agency of the Year” by Campaign Middle East. Also in 2007, ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller dominated the Gulf Marketing Review Effectiveness in Marketing Awards for Public Relations, winning two of three awards for its work on the BBC World Service and Emaar Properties.

Sunil serves on the National Advisory Council for the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University and is the UAE National Chair of the International Public Relations Association. He is also Vice President of the IPRA Gulf Chapter.