Working from the company’s Bahrain office, Jackson will lead a team of 12 technology specialists, as well as acting as head of PR in Bahrain.
Memac Ogilvy, in which Ogilvy has a 40 per cent stake, is a marketing and PR company founded in 1984 with offices spanning the Middle East and north Africa.
The company counts IBM, LG and Philipps among its tech clients.
Jackson said the role had been created because the company ‘wanted to put more emphasis on building a dedicated practice’ for technology, which had previously been run by the company’s head of PR Saada Hammad.
Jackson, the former MD of Hill+Knowlton Strategies' technology practice, said one of his tasks would be to use Ogilvy’s ‘rich technology heritage’ to instigate training in social media and other areas.
He said: ‘If you look at what happened in the Arab Spring, some people called it a social media revolution. Facebook and Twitter are an important part of the fabric of Egypt now. A liberalisation of the media is slowly taking place and social media are becoming more important. It’s an interesting time to be involved in the development of PR.’
In his head of PR role, which also encompasses Government Relations and corporate, Jackson will report to Ghassan Boujacli, General Manager of the Bahrain office. He will begin the role on 30 January 2013.
