Through our MENACOM Career Chat series, we speak with former MENACOM Jordan employees about how their experiences with the group have shaped their lives and careers.

For this edition of MENACOM Career Chat, we spoke with Rana Kawalit, who worked with MENACOM Jordan from 2006 to 2015, as part of public relations agency Polaris, which later merged with ASDA’A BCW. After leaving MENACOM, Rana joined Fine Hygienic Holding, where she has dutifully worked her way up to an executive leadership role, serving as the group’s Head of Corporate Communication and PR. She also serves as a board member for the United Nations Global Compact Jordan Network, where she helps encourage organizations across the Kingdom to take concrete action on various development principles and issues, including human rights, the environment, and anti-corruption.

How did your career at MENACOM begin?

Before I joined MENACOM, I spent two months after graduation working for a mobile content company, where I worked on short pieces of SMS content. I remember thinking to myself, “This isn’t what I want to do.”

At that time, human resources was a hot topic, so I took a course in HR, hoping to find something in that field. Then my cousin, who worked at ASDA’A, suggested that I send my CV to MENACOM. I asked her what she did, and she told me she worked in PR. To be honest, I didn’t even know what PR was back then, but the group’s other PR agency, Polaris, was looking for someone to join their team.

When they first explained to me what PR entailed, I remember getting very focused on the fact that the company did events: I thought, “Oh, that sounds fun, I want to do events.” What I discovered throughout my journey was that, while I love PR, events are probably one of my least-favorite things to work on. But I’m grateful that it got me interested enough to join.

I started as an account executive and, over the course of nine years, I worked my way up the client servicing ladder, until I reached the level of group account director.

In those first few years, one thing I clearly remember is how hard we worked, but how much we enjoyed it. I felt like there was this unspoken motto of ‘work hard, play hard.’ There were late nights at the office, but we also hung out together in our free time and attended lots of fun MENACOM events together. The culture of the company was just exceptional. It felt almost utopian: we had this great, supportive team and we were working on very interesting, exciting accounts.

I was lucky to get to work on clients in many different industries, from telecom to banking, to retail. I also had the opportunity to work on some regional accounts, like when we had this big project for LG in Kurdistan, Iraq. Another major highlight was working on IKEA when it first launched here in Jordan—that was a really big deal. And of course, working with Orange when they first rebranded from Jordan Telecom was incredible, and we had this huge, fully fledged communication plan. That’s another thing that was so great about MENACOM: with the high level of group-wide integration, I got to work on more than PR. With integrated accounts like Orange, you get exposure to everything: PR, direct marketing, advertising… everything.

And what have you been up to since then?

In 2015, one of my MENACOM clients reached out to me about an opportunity to work at Fine Hygienic Holding. I first joined in June 2015 as the internal communication manager for the region, handling not only Jordan, but other markets like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt. Then in 2017, the company underwent restructuring, and they decided to merge internal and external communication, so I was put in charge of the new corporate communication department.

The next year, in 2018, we got a new CEO, James Michael Lafferty, and he did some changes. For one, he expanded the company’s executive leadership team from seven people to 14, and he decided that PR should be a part of that team. He also increased women’s participation in executive leadership, from zero representation to 33 percent. Eventually, I was also promoted to director, and I’m now responsible for all corporate communications throughout the region, and in any new market we enter.

In addition to my role at the company, I also sit on the board of the United Nations Global Compact Jordan Network, where I represent Fine. The UN Global Compact is a voluntary pact that encourages organizations to take concrete action on key issues like human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. In particular, I’m very interested in sustainability, so I’m also involved in Fine’s many different sustainability efforts and initiatives.

What were some of the lessons and takeaways from your time at MENACOM?

The exposure I had to so many different industries and practices was unbelievably valuable. Working on so many different accounts made it easy to shift to the client side of the business. I also learned a great deal about how to prioritize and manage work, and how to adapt to different management styles.

What advice would you give to current MENACOM employees, or young people who are interested in a career in the advertising and marketing communication field?

When I look back at my time with MENACOM, I feel so lucky that I was able to work for such a company. MENACOM is such a solid company with a great corporate culture and a wonderful reputation in the market. I also just loved the work environment there: the friends I made during my time at MENACOM are still some of my closest friends, all these years later.

I think working in an agency setting like that is so fun and dynamic, and there’s so much potential to learn and grow. For fresh graduates or people early in their careers, I highly recommend getting agency experience early on.