The MENA Power List 2026: WPP Media MENA’s Ralph Khoury

WPP Media MENA’s Ralph Khoury on transforming financial strategy, adapting to an AI-powered industry and driving business growth.

Ralph Khoury is often labelled a ‘Crisis Financial Officer’, for his unique ability to support growth, transformation, and deliver profitability for corporations that have experienced ‘once in a lifetime’ financial/economic crisis.

Be it Indonesia, post the Asian Financial Crisis, Malaysia following the SARS outbreak, in Dubai during the Global Financial Crisis, or most recently with the Financial challenges brought on by Covid-19, Ralph has been integral in helping navigate the re-emergence of the corporations that he represented, to become leading players in their markets and industries in post-crisis environments.

In January 2026, he was appointed as the Chief Financial Officer for WPP Media across MENA, to help drive the transformation the Finance function, and adapt the group’s financial strategy in a world and ecosystem that is now powered by AI. Prior to that, he held a number of CFO roles across Omnicom Creative and Media, culminating in his last role as the CFO leading Omnicom’s Commercial and Financial relationship with their largest global client, Nissan.

In December 2023, Ralph was appointed to CPA Australia’s Ethics and Professional Standards Centre of Excellence. An active Public Speaker, and an advocate for the Finance Community Internationally, Ralph speaks in many forums on topics ranging from Ethics and Governance, Financial Management during crisis environments, the role and evolution to CFO and Effective Commercial Negotiation.

Ralph holds a Bachelor of Economics Degree from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He is a fellow of the Australian Society of Certified Practicing Accountants. He has served on the Finance Committee for the American School of Dubai for more than 5 years up until December 2025 and was the Chair of the UAE Committee for CPA Australia for 8 years until the end of 2022.

Born in Sydney Australia, he has spent the last 18 years of his life in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Ralph is married and has twin daughters.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE PAST YEAR

From a personal standpoint, it’s a no-brainer to say that the highlight of the year was joining WPP Media. Through 2026, Amer El Hajj and the team have been on a winning streak across the MENA region. There is a reason for that. When one client after the other entrusts their brand to you, it builds confidence and trust. So, when I started on 5 January 2026, it felt great.

RAPID FIRE

Best book you’ve read in the past 12 months
Madison Avenue Revisited by Michael Farmer.

One thing the industry needs to improve as a priority
Overhauling the pricing of services.

One point of focus for 2026 within the organisation
Insulating the organisation from the impact of the regional conflict.

One quality you believe is essential to leadership
Integrity

Words of advice to young leaders
There is no substitute for hard work.

One ad that you enjoyed in the past 12 months
“The KitKat Heist”

One thing that you’ve unlearnt and learnt in the past 12 months
Unlearnt: losing my patience. Learnt: the power of AI for finance.

POWER ESSAY: WHY YOUR NEXT AGENCY RFP NEEDS A REWRITE

The marketing and communications landscape in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is experiencing an extraordinary era of growth and innovation. As we navigate this dynamic market together, our industry’s ultimate goal remains constant: delivering exceptional growth for our clients, building their
profiles and ultimately driving their commercial success.

To achieve this in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, the industry has an opportunity to evolve traditional commercial models. For decades, the foundational agency relationship has relied on billable hours. This is a model that assumes the more time taken to complete a project, the greater the investment required. However, in a future defined by agility and increasing automation, true value will lie in the impact of the work, not necessarily the time it takes to produce.

When agencies utilise automation, artificial intelligence and strategic brilliance to achieve client goals faster, a traditional time-based model simply does not capture the true value of that efficiency. If we help a brand successfully break into a new market, exponentially grow a subscriber base or drive highly qualified traffic that converts to significant sales, the focus should be on celebrating and expanding those remarkable outcomes. By shifting commercial strategies to focus on the results delivered, agencies align their success entirely with the brands they serve.

The integration of AI into our daily operations makes this evolution not just possible, but essential. AI supercharges our ability to scale campaigns, extract predictive analytics and optimise media deployments with unprecedented speed and precision.
At WPP, we invest significantly in WPP Open, our agentic marketing platform. WPP Open unifies our capabilities across the entire marketing lifecycle, spanning strategic ideation and creative development through to scaled production and complex commerce execution. As this powerful technology allows us to work smarter and faster, transitioning to outcome-based partnerships will help to ensure clients continue to receive the maximum benefit from these innovations.

For brands ready to embrace this evolution, it may help to begin this transformation during the procurement and request for proposal (RFP) process. Exploring these three tangible shifts in how briefs are structured can help build stronger, more deeply integrated partnerships that deliver truly exceptional results:

1. Pivot from output to business outcomes: Rather than issuing RFPs that request full-time equivalent (FTE) headcounts and day rates, anchor the brief in strategic business goals. Procurement teams might consider outlining the specific market share they wish to capture, the brand value they aim to elevate, or the exact conversion metrics they need to hit.

2. Value capability over capacity: Brands often achieve their most significant leaps forward when prioritising strategic brilliance and technological capability over hours logged. When evaluating potential partners, consider looking closely at an agency’s ability to leverage data, insight and AI platforms such as WPP Open. Shifting evaluation criteria can unlock levels of efficiency and innovation that traditional time-and-materials contracts simply cannot support.

3. Define a shared success model: Truly modern partnerships establish clear, mutually beneficial commercial structures early in the process. Brands might consider listing the exact delivery metrics they are willing to contract on and pay for. When agencies are rewarded for hitting specific and pre-agreed targets, it creates a dynamic where both parties share the exact same motivation: driving the most impactful results at the greatest possible speed.

We see a remarkable opportunity for brands in the MENA region to lead this global transformation. As local markets continue their rapid growth and expansion, the ability to act quickly and capture market share is a brand’s greatest competitive advantage. By becoming early adopters of outcome-focused partnerships, brands in MENA can facilitate industry-wide innovation while reaping the immediate rewards of highly efficient, highly
effective marketing.

At WPP Media, we are uniquely equipped to meet these modern demands. We proudly serve as trusted strategic advisors for global and regional clients who entrust us to deliver tangible business results. The time has come for the broader industry to embrace this confident, forward-looking approach. Together, we can build sustainable, future-proof partnerships that consistently deliver extraordinary success.

Originally published in Campaign Middle East.