Dubai, UAE: The Marketing Society, a leading global community of the world’s smartest marketers, has announced the continuation of its gender equality campaign through a regional partnership with global communications and public relations agency, Weber Shandwick MENAT who join TikTok as Founding Partners.

Launched last year across the UAE and wider MENA region, ‘Think Equal’ sets to break barriers by accelerating diversity, gender equality and inclusion at mid and high levels of management in the Marketing & Communications industry. The thoughtful 2023 programme aims to encourage both women and men to be active participants in driving change, whilst generating more awareness, visibility, and leadership opportunities for women in the industry. A mix of free events are planned over the next year, including online masterclasses, training sessions, mentoring, policy change discussions, book clubs, content and more.

Ziad Hasbani, CEO of Weber Shandwick MENAT, commented on the partnership with Think Equal: “We are thrilled to join forces with The Marketing Society and TikTok on this ground-breaking, and hugely important, initiative. Think Equal will inspire women who are building their careers and make men equal partners in shaping a working environment that benefits from the valuable contributions of both women and men. Today, it is time to act. Gender equality is part of our DNA and a key pillar of our agency culture. We are committed to make an impact and accelerate change, whilst working closely with brands, agencies and media owners in the region to do their part.”

Annie Arsane, Regional Head of Business Marketing, Middle East, Turkey, Africa, and Pakistan – TikTok and Founding Partner of Think Equal, added: “After the immense success of Think Equal’s launch in 2022, we are excited to continue supporting The Marketing Society in their mission to keep the conversation around gender equality open, current and relevant. A key focus of this initiative is to better equip women to take on senior industry roles, and we helped to achieve that through the 100+ participants we engaged in the Think Equal programme last year. With Weber Shandwick, we are excited to embark on another year of providing solutions to the problems that women face in the workplace, not just talking about them.”

In 2021, Weber Shandwick announced a goal to be the communications industry's most inclusive agency. It is committed to shape a culture of equity and inclusion in its workforce, from hiring to career development opportunities. It continues to build a foundation of belonging, where team members can bring their authentic selves to work and bring diverse thinking and new ideas. In the MENAT region, this was further enforced with the rollout of its People-First Culture framework and engagement initiative.

The diversity of the community on TikTok is what makes the platform such a wonderful place. Diversity is essential to maintaining a thriving global community, and it brings the many corners of TikTok closer together. With this purpose in mind, TikTok partnered with The Marketing Society in 2022 to launch Think Equal, providing the space for its employees to share their passion externally and make an impact on the overall industry.

The Marketing Society encourages all businesses to get involved and come together to take action and drive positive change for a future generation of marketers, working alongside the founding partner TikTok, and now Weber Shandwick, to help make this possible.

For more information on the programme and how to get involved, please visit the The Marketing Society’s website.

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For more information please contact: 

House of Comms (Comms Partner of The Marketing Society UAE) 
Alice Waldie
alice.w@houseofcomms.com

The Marketing Society UAE 
Alasdair Hall-Jones
alasdair@marketingsociety.com

Weber Shandwick (Official Partner of Think Equal)
Mariaan Valero
mvalero@webershandwick.com

About The Marketing Society 

The Marketing Society is a leading global membership community, founded in 1959 as a not-for-profit organisation. Since then, we have grown to become a highly influential community of marketing leaders around the world, with hubs in England (HQ), Scotland, Hong Kong, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and New York. 

We inspire, accelerate and unite the world’s smartest marketers, helping them to do well in their careers, and to do good in their organisations, the economy and society. 

We work together to grow marketing’s positive impact. 

Why? Because we believe that brilliant marketers and brave leaders grow organisations and change the world. We connect the changemakers, those who want to make an impact and make a difference because we know that together, as a community, we achieve more than we do alone. 

Through the connections of our 2500+ Membership community, a world-class programme of events, ground-breaking professional development programmes, prestigious Awards scheme, publications, Careers Channel and insightful content, we help empower our members to lead success in their organisations and add value to customers and society, leading the conversation in businesses and the industry. 

About Weber Shandwick

Weber Shandwick is the in-culture communications agency. Led by world-class strategic and creative thinkers and activators, Weber Shandwick has won some of the most prestigious awards in the industry, including being named to Ad Age’s A-List in 2020 and Best Places to Work in 2019. Weber Shandwick was also honored as PRovoke’s Global Agency of the Decade in 2020, PRWeek’s Middle East Agency of the Year in 2020, and PRCA MENA’s Large Consultancy of the Year in 2022. Cumulatively, the firm has earned more than 150 Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Weber Shandwick also received Honorable Mention (and the only PR agency) on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Global Marketing Agencies in 2021.  In the Middle East, North Africa & Turkey (MENAT region), the network is present in 13 cities, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Doha and Istanbul. To date, both the UAE and Turkey operations have been certified as a Great Place to Work®. Part of the Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), Weber Shandwick is the anchor agency within The Weber Shandwick Collective – the earned-first strategic communications and consulting network built for the convergence of society, media, policy and technology. For more information, visit www.webershandwickmenat.com