The Scoop On The Narrative Summit 2018

Under the auspices of Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, this year’s edition of the Narrative Summit for nation branding took place at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza on October 28th with the participation of two ministers and an impressive variety of local and international speakers from the most diverse fields, such as investment, fashion, entertainment, technology and economy.

This edition’s speakers included Mahmoud Mohieldin, World Bank Group Senior Vice President, Sam Werberg, Press Attaché and Spokesperson at US Embassy Cairo, Ayman Baky, founder of Baky Hospitality and even Alia Abaza, designer and founder of Alia Abaza. On top of that, the two ministers who joined the conversation were Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Waly and Minister of Tourism Rania Al-Mashat. While most speakers shared their success stories and personal vision to encourage progress, others discussed the common challenges faced by the country these days and ideas on how to improve Egypt’s brand image.

A clear highlight of the summit was the speech by Moataz El Hout, CEO of Nestle in the North East Africa Region, who bridged the gap between the vision of nation branding and reality through the efforts of monitoring quality and improving the standard of “Made in Egypt” for people across the globe.

Another powerful presentation was by Dr. Natalia Kanem, United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UNFPA, who talked about women empowerment and family planning. “The narrative continues because justice must take place by developing poor education, poor health care and poor families as they are the main aspects behind the development of nations.”

What’s more, an engaging panel discussion moderated by Jason Mackenzie, vice president of CIPR, featured four powerful, successful women, namely Egyptian Squash Star Raneem El Welily, Farzana Baduel, CEO of Curzon PR, Dina Saoudi, co-founder of Seven Circles and Seven’s World, and Amy Mowafi, CEO and co-founder of MO4 Network. The summit finally came to an end with two inspiring interviews with GFF’s Amr Mansi and beloved actress Nelly Karim.

The Narrative Summit started out as an event supporting the movement to encourage and energize the notion of nation branding through creation and growing of leadership. Besides the patronage of the Egyptian government, there was also support by the UNFPA, US Embassy, SEBA, AUC, Injaz, EJB and Oxford Business Group this year, each of which provided a wide reach and the means to expose such a powerful message on global platforms.

Interestingly enough, the summit is considered the first international meeting of public relations in Egypt. Organized by CC Plus, a corporate communications and media consultancy agency, the aim is to forge a new domain for experts and market leaders where they can talk about the unified front we need as a nation in order to enhance advancement opportunities and communicate a positive brand to the world.