Career summary

Just two years after graduating from Monash with a double major in Digital Journalism and Communications, Ghadeer won Mumbrella’s best PR Talent of the Year award for 2017. Shortly afterward, she was approached by the global advertising giant Ogilvy to work for their agency in Dubai. Three years later Ghadeer is the Associate Director of Social Media for Ogilvy in the UAE, working with global clients, leading change in the field of social media and continually setting and achieving her goals.

Career pathway

2017 to current – Head of Social, Creative, Campaigns & Brand, Tourism, Sponsorships,  Integrated Campaigns with DCT, Abu Dhabi
2016 – Filtered Media, Social Media & PR Manager, Sydney
2014 – Bachelor of Journalism, Communication, Distinction, Monash University
2013 – Couturing, Social Media Content Producer, Melbourne

What has your career journey been like since graduating from Monash?

My career started while I was studying at Monash. During my studies I became a beauty writer for Couturing, which is a Melbourne-based lifestyle and beauty publication. I was with them for about three years before I moved on to Filtered Media, which is a brand content marketing agency based in Sydney. I worked there as a PR and Social Media Manager and we had some great clients including Hisense, Vitamix, Coca-Cola, and the Financial Planning Association of Australia.

While I was with Filtered Media, I won Mumbrella’s best PR Talent of the Year for 2017. The moment that news hit the headlines across Australia and around the world, Ogilvy in the Middle East reached out to me and said, ‘You’ve got to come over to Dubai and work with us.’ You can't say no to a top advertising agency! I’ve been here three now and it’s been an absolute dream.

What does your role with Ogilvy involve?

I was brought on board to work with the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi and led their events channels for two years. I worked on many events including the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, UFC 242 Abu Dhabi and Mubadala World Tennis Championships.

I’m now the Associate Social Media Account Director with Memac Ogilvy. My job includes curating, developing and implementing the social media strategy for clients across tourism, automotive and oil & gas across the UAE. I also oversee a team of social media executives and managers and work alongside the creative and planning team to launch campaigns for our brands.

What skills did you learn in your Arts degree that you have applied throughout your career?

A lot of people think the skills that you gain are all from hands-on experiences, but without the foundations I learned in my studies at Monash I would have been lost! To this day, I use the skills and confidence gained from my Journalism classes to prep and interview celebrities or ambassadors at events and my legal knowledge from Journalism and the Law to not get into any trouble.

Skills also came from my tutors. I learned so much from Julie-Ann Tullberg who pushed me to go out and jump on many internship opportunities. I’m a huge believer in internships.

What did you learn from your internships?

When I started University, I didn’t know anyone in the industry. I started interning in my first year and by the time I graduated I had finished around 12 internships. I knew that I wanted to be in communications, and I knew the industry was based in Sydney. Julie supported me to study remotely so I could undertake multiple internships in Sydney. I worked part-time in retail so I could save up for my flights to Sydney for these internships.

I interned for Cosmo, Marie Claire, Dolly and Shop Til You Drop. I was also a music journalist for Nova FM in Melbourne. On the weekends I would go to concerts to write reviews and interviews – I interviewed Ed Sheeran, Jason Derulo and Lady Gaga. It’s definitely a career highlight!

All those internships helped shape me into the kind of person I wanted to be and gain valuable skills that I still use to this day. Everything that I know today stems somewhere back into an internship that I took.

What advice do you have for students looking for internship opportunities?

Something that my best friend Natasa and I had was the ‘no shame’ policy. We said that we would never have any shame in asking anyone for an internship. We were just 18 and 19 and we had no shame in choosing a publication we liked, stalking down the editor, finding their email address and sending an email saying, ‘I’m a journalism student and I want an internship with Cosmo.’ Surprisingly, they would offer it to us because we went out and made it happen ourselves.

Now with social media, finding an internship has never been easier. My advice is to find a mentor in the position, build a relationship with them, do an internship and keep in contact with them afterwards as you build your contacts.

The journalism and digital media industries are changing rapidly. How do you keep up with change?

I knew from 2012 when I started my degree that things were changing. My first internship was with the magazine Girlfriend, and I remember watching as they started building their digital website to publish their articles online. From then on, I decided to concentrate on digital journalism.

I believe there’s space in digital media for you to be ready for change. Platforms like Facebook will notify you on their updates before they happen. You can have your finger on the pulse by being subscribed to publications like Social Media Today.

An initiative I worked on was with Filtered Media back in Sydney. I pioneered the first Facebook Global Page for Hisense, a Chinese electronics company. Headquartered in China with presence across the world, they had over 100 different pages that were all disconnected with their own separate marketing, branding and logos. I led the consolidation of all their market pages under one global structure from a small office in Sydney! This change was the trigger of my award at Mumbrella.

What advice would you give students who want to be pioneers of change?

Creating something that’s disruptive is actually quite simple. As a consumer, you can look at your social media platforms and ask yourself – how do I like to consume media?

In my view, we’ve moved away from the traditional ‘four P’s of marketing’ – product, placement, price and promotion, to the ‘Four E’s of marketing’. Marketing must be more emotional, exclusive, experiential and engaging. Something with an emotional element in the newsfeed is what will get consumers to stop their thumb and consume the content. Personalised, bite-sized pieces of content are important.

The world is rapidly changing, but if you are the first to make these changes, you can inspire others. That’s how you adapt to change – you create the change yourself.

Interviewed by Lilly Walsh, journalism intern, Monash Arts, 2020

Image description: Ghadeer at the UFC 242 Abu Dhabi event in 2019.