Horizon Holdings Elevates Rafic Saadeh and Mazen Jawad

Horizon Holdings, part of Interpublic Group (IPG) and FCB Global, announced the elevation of two leaders: Rafic Saadeh and Mazen Jawad. Horizon Holdings' co-founder and partner, Rafic, is elevated from chairman and chief executive officer to executive chairman, and Mazen will serve as chief executive officer after serving as president. The appointments follow the 45th anniversary since the founding of Horizon Holdings, which evolved from single brand into an iconic marketing and communications group comprised of five multinational award-winning agencies in the MENA region: Horizon FCB MENA, BPN MENA, GolinMENA, Blue Barracuda and Fuelcontent. 

Most recently holding the titles of chairman and CEO, Rafic is now executive chairman, building on his legacy of leading Horizon Holdings since its inception in 1976. In 1979, Horizon Holdings began a relationship with global integrated marketing communications company FCB, catalysing the journeys of Horizon Holdings and FCB’s MENA arm Horizon FCB, and sparking decades of regional and global recognition - including FCB being named Cannes Lions’ ‘2020/2021 Network of the Year’ and Adweek’s ‘2020 Global Agency of the Year.’

“This is another special milestone in Horizon’s ever-evolving legacy. On September 13th, 1976, Saad [Hijjawi] and I first opened the doors of our first office in Kuwait, and ever since, our team has been committed to transforming our Horizon from a single integrated operation into what it is today,” said Rafic. “Mazen leads with purpose and fully embodies our Never Finished brand story, and he’ll continue to navigate us to see the success on the Horizon.”

With 28 years within the network with stints in the US, Europe and the Middle East since 2001, Mazen will lead Horizon Holdings as CEO after serving as president since 2019. Pivotal to the group’s ongoing legacy, Mazen has a proven track record for success, which includes launching Horizon Holding’s digital agency Blue Barracuda and FCB’s production arm Fuelcontent in Dubai, appointing Dubai’s first Arab female leader of a multinational agency, and transforming Horizon FCB Dubai into a leading creative agency in the region. The group of companies just celebrated its 45th year anniversary with over 140 clients and partners such as ABK, Asharq Bloomberg, Clorox, DHL, GSK, Petromin, Rotana H&R, Seddiqi Holdings, Visa and several government institutions amongst others. 

“The current standing of Horizon and our brands is all thanks to Rafic’s unwavering vision and our team’s ongoing bravery,” said Mazen. “In an era of drastic regional and global transformations, Horizon Holdings is poised to remain at the forefront as we focus on data and tech-fuelled creativity and work that solves our clients’ business issues. Whether it’s branding, creative, media, PR, digital solutions, omni commerce, events activations or content productions, we’ll always strive to remain innovative, disruptive yet relevant to our region.” 

Living into FCB’s Never Finished mantra, Horizon Holdings continues investing in innovation-led creativity to address modern client needs, provide high-quality personalised and unique content, and drive consumer engagement. Horizon FCB for example has been using the perfect equilibrium of data, technology and creativity having lately launched or still in the process of bringing five new brands to life, that will enrich the lives of the people of our region, among other work. 

Together, both Rafic and Mazen, are writing Horizon Holdings next success chapter with Never Finished ideas and brands that continue to be the hallmark of FCB and the kind of data-fuelled creativity built on human values that has made IPG the top performing holding company in the world.