The Chief Strategy Officer at Publicis Groupe MENAT shares his thoughts on turbulence in the region, emerging trends, and his dual identity as a strategist and film-maker.
Tahaab Rais has one of those careers you admire from afar. By following his instincts, personal passions and powerful curiosity, he’s been able to straddle strategy and filmmaking, almost fusing them into a discipline of his own. During a sensitive period for the Middle East region – and more than a decade after our last in-depth interview – it was high time to catch up with him.
You come from a strategy background, but more recently you turned your hand to film-making. What drove that evolution?
I never really saw strategy and film as two separate disciplines. To me they came from the same instinct, which is to understand people deeply, identify the tension, find the human emotion, and then express it in a truthful way that moves people.
For years, I spent my life helping brands shape stories, build worlds, influence behaviours and give meaning to what they were putting into the world. But I reached a point where I felt words on a slide were not always enough. Sometimes you do not want to explain a feeling. You want to make someone live inside it.
That is what film gave me. It gave me another language – silence, framing, rhythm, performance, music, restraint – all the things strategy often points toward, but cannot always fully hold.
And the truth is, each discipline made me better at the other. Strategy made me a better director because it taught me intent, precision and how to align people around an idea. Filmmaking made me a better strategist because it reminded me that logic alone does not change people. Emotion does.
Which of your films are you most proud of up until now?
If I had to pick one, it would probably be “47 Seconds”. It is the only film that made me cry while I was writing it. The subject was energy shortages, but what moved me was not the issue in an abstract sense - it was the human reality of it. I could feel what people were going through as I wrote it. What is interesting is that it feels even more relevant today.
But I am generally proudest of the films that feel human, not just polished. I have tried to explore very different kinds of storytelling. There was “Rihla, The Journey”, in Saudi Arabia, which followed pilgrims on their journey to Mecca and captured something very raw and real. There was also “Strangers” for King Faisal Hospital, around organ donation, which meant a lot to me because I care deeply about work that can have a meaningful impact.
Then there were films that pushed me into unexpected territory. I never thought I would make a sports film, for example, but doing one for the NBA and discovering that world through a child in the streets of India was a beautiful experience. And more recently I made an absurd comedy, “The Sea and the Break”, which was completely outside my natural disposition. I am not a funny guy at all, so the fact that people genuinely laughed was reassuring.
So if there is a pattern, it is this: I am proudest when the work leaves something behind in people. Not just when it looks good, but when it feels true.
See Tahaab's full film reel here.
I am generally proudest of the films that feel human, not just polished
You remain Chief Strategy Officer at Publicis Groupe MENAT. How do you find time to combine those roles?
I do not really separate the two. I see them as deeply complementary. Strategy keeps me grounded. It keeps me close to the real world – to clients, culture, commercial reality, human behaviour, brands, organisations, and how everything is evolving, including with AI. It stops me from becoming creatively indulgent.
Filmmaking does the opposite in the best possible way. It keeps me emotionally and aesthetically alive. It stops me from becoming too clinical or too corporate. In strategy, you learn what something needs to do. In film, you learn what it needs to feel like.
So I have tried to build a life where both sharpen each other. One gives me precision. The other gives me presence. One keeps me intellectually honest. The other keeps me emotionally honest.
And if I am being very personal, both are ultimately in service of what I promised my late mother – that I would try to do good work in the world, and hopefully leave people a little better than I found them. That is the obsession behind both.
Publicis Groupe MENAT was Campaign’s Agency of the Year in the region in 2025. Can you sum up what makes the agency so successful?
I would say two things: real integration, and a genuine focus on talent. We do not just talk about collaboration. We have operationalised it. Our teams are not separate empires or separate agencies fighting for oxygen. They are designed to move together around the client’s problem. That creates better work, better decisions, faster outcomes, stronger commercial impact, and it also makes the place more stimulating for talent, because people get to work across disciplines and across very different categories.
The second thing is talent. I personally think the word culture is often overused. Everyone says they have a culture. The question is: what is your culture actually in service of? If it is seriously about recognising talent, rewarding talent, and building a system where talented people can collide productively around meaningful problems, then strong things happen.
That is what I think has helped us. A very real commitment to integration, and a very real commitment to talent.
Our teams are not separate empires or separate agencies fighting for oxygen.
Obviously it’s an uncertain time in your region right now. What are your thoughts on how that might impact the industry there?
First, I want to say a few words of compassion for those in the region who have been suffering, especially in places where the human cost has been so devastating.
More broadly, uncertainty does affect the industry, but not always in the lazy way people assume. Yes, volatility can slow decision-making. It can tighten budgets. It can make clients more cautious. But it also exposes the difference between marketing that is decorative and marketing that is truly useful.
At times like this, clients do not want noise. They want clarity. They want efficiency. They want work that earns attention and proves value.
So I think periods like this sharpen the industry. They make us less forgiving of vanity and more rewarding of effectiveness and relevance. The Middle East has always had to navigate complexity, but it also has resilience. There is still ambition here. There is still growth here. There is still belief in what is possible here.
I think the winners will be the people and businesses who do not panic, do not posture, and do not confuse activity with progress.
Apart from that, can you tell us one or two key trends that are driving creativity in the region?
One major trend is a growing creative self-assurance, especially in Saudi Arabia. Earlier, a lot of work from the region felt like it was trying to prove it belonged. Now it behaves like it knows it does, and that is a very different energy. The transformation happening there is creating new industries, new audiences, new behaviours and new ambitions, which in turn is leading to more interesting briefs and ideas that are rooted in local reality rather than borrowed from elsewhere.
The second is the quality and confidence of homegrown talent coming through. I work with a lot of young Saudis, and young talent from across the region, and their hunger to create work people will genuinely watch, feel and remember is very real. They could choose easier or more financially rewarding routes, but many are choosing this industry because they want to make meaningful things.
That combination – a region becoming more self-assured, and a generation of talent coming through with real energy – is creating a very exciting creative moment.
At times like this, clients do not want noise. They want clarity.
Last year you spoke to Campaign magazine about your autism. It does not seem to have hindered your career – perhaps the contrary. But do you believe enough is being done to understand autistic people in our industry?
Awareness is improving, not just around autism but neurodiversity more broadly. But I do not think we are improving fast enough in how we behave with it, support it, or design for it.
In my case, I did not know I was autistic for a long time. I was often perceived as too direct or too aggressive, even when that was not my intent at all. When I eventually understood it, I made the mistake many people make, which is masking rather than talking about it. One thing I have learned is that you have to speak about it. Organisations cannot support what they do not understand or cannot see.
But awareness is only the start. Real understanding should lead to better communication, more thoughtful leadership, and more inclusive environments. Something as simple as noise, interruptions or crowded environments can completely change how someone functions. Different people process differently, and I still do not think our industry fully understands that.
There needs to be more appreciation that brilliance does not always arrive in the most socially expected packaging. And that is not just morally right. It is creatively intelligent. Difference enriches the work. It always has.
