Omnicom's Fuse makes first senior MENA hire, appointing Freddy Farhat to lead sports partnerships
Freddy Farhat | Image by Omnicom Media
Fuse, the sport and entertainment marketing agency owned by Omnicom Media, has appointed Freddy Farhat as Senior Director, Sports Partnerships for the Middle East and North Africa, its first senior strategic hire since opening a Dubai office in May. The appointment gives Omnicom a dedicated sponsorship advisory line in a region where agency capacity has lagged the growth in sports spending, and it places North African rights holders inside the remit of a desk built on Gulf demand.
Farhat will be based in Dubai and reports to Danielle Barwick, Executive Director of Fuse MENA, who relocated from Fuse's London office to launch the market. He takes on partnership strategy, commercial development and rights consultancy for brands and rights holders, working across the agency's client portfolio while supporting new business across the region.
"Brands are looking for more from partnerships than ever before, and we're continuing to invest in our regional offering to meet that demand," Barwick said. She added that Farhat brings "commercial partnership expertise, rights holder relationships and regional market knowledge" to the role.
He arrives from Dentsu Sports International, where he was Senior Manager, Global Partnerships, and before that was Sports Partnerships Director at UAE-based immersive video platform VUZ. He has advised Mondelez, Carlsberg and Capital.com on partnerships spanning football, Formula 1 and tennis, and has worked with rights holders including LALIGA and the PFL.
"I was drawn to the ambition of the business and its belief that the best partnerships are built through participation, not simply visibility," Farhat said.
Fuse opened in Dubai in May, building on an existing presence in Saudi Arabia. Its international client roster includes PepsiCo, Vodafone, Philips and UFC. The parent group, Omnicom Media Group MENA, is run from Dubai Media City by chief executive Elda Choucair and covers the Gulf, the Levant and North Africa.
Fuse's MENA remit formally takes in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Agencies follow budgets, and the budgets are in the Gulf. But the two biggest sponsorship markets on the African continent sit inside this remit, and one of them has just produced the strongest commercial case in African football's history. AFCON 2025 in Morocco ran with 23 commercial partners, against nine at Cameroon 2021 and 17 in Côte d'Ivoire two years later. Sponsorship brought in roughly $126m of the tournament's $192.6m total revenue, with net profit projected at $113.8m. Rabat is now building towards co-hosting the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal.
