Tarek Homsi

Brazil operation of Webedia, a France based international digital content creator and distributor

- 7 business models (Direct media, Branded Content (including video production and influencer management), programmatic advertising, social content distribution, content services and eCommerce)

- 7 verticals: Food, Movies and Series, Gaming and eSports, Health, Tech, Trends

- circa 500 employees, $20m-$25m revenues

Full-scale turnaround and scaling-up post rapid, non-integrated growth phase

- Improved EBITDA margin from -10% to over 18%

- Transformed Brazilian operations into a cohesive, efficient structure and drove stronger group-wide integration

- Groomed the management team, and drove a 2 year gradual transition through succession planning

- Led the company through the COVID pandemic, keeping the turnaround plan on track despite operational challenges and market volatility and fostered cohesion by upholding values of humanity, honesty, transparency and openness

Business portfolio

- closed five unsustainable BUs, carved out and divested another, minimizing impact on clients, assets, partners, capabilities, staff and morale

- invested over $3m in assets and business lines with untapped potential

Commercial

- Overhauled pricing and product catalog (2,000+ items), boosting competitiveness and margins (+10%)

- Introduced product management to enhance focus, innovation, and performance

- Restructured a 90+ person sales team, aligning roles, processes, and incentives with market potential

- Launched a business development program securing $2M+ in recurring annual revenue from large clients

Operations:

- Redesigned the organization, processes and operational KPIs, and implemented critical tools (ERP, Salesforce, BI , AI tool pilots) to develop critical expertise, reduce costs and complexity, increase efficiency and speed, control costs and margins, capture emerging market opportunities, and better integrate with the broader group

Middle East Based start-up focused on digital content creation and distribution - sold to Webedia Digital publishing (luxury, parenting, cooking), and solutions and services to support brands across Creation, Content, Video Production, Influence, Data and Technologies Reason for leaving: Seeking a change in location and organization to broaden my professional experience

Operations and Leadership

• Responsible for the daily operations of the company with direct reporting from publishing, services, sales, finance, media buying, ad operations / with tech and product reporting directly to the CEO

• Developed and managed the company talent pool with staff growing from 35 to 160 employees across three offices (Dubai, Beirut, Belgrade) between 2011 and 2018

• Built from scratch the organization, tools and processes for content creation, content distribution (web and social), programmatic, data, services/ solutions, pricing, sales, financial reporting and profitability monitoring

Business Development

• Drove sales and business development efforts across direct clients, media agencies and key partners, directly and by driving and supporting the respective sales teams (8 people), resulting in a 5x growth in revenue between 2011 and 2018

Fundraising and M&A

• Managed the transaction process across 4 financing rounds with PE investors totalling $18m and the strategic exit to Webedia in March 2014 (business plan, pitch deck, investor meetings, shareholder agreement negotiations, due diligence)

• Drove the deal process for the July 2018 merger of Diwanee with UTURN group, a leading Saudi content network, with a $17m investment from Five Capital, a fund representing the French and Saudi sovereign wealth funds, to form Webedia Arabia - including bridge financing, corporate set-up

• Led the end-to-end acquisition and integration of two targets in publishing and services

Reason for leaving: Desired to transition into entrepreneurship

Projects focus: 50% media, 20% consumer goods, 30% other

Sample work

• Led 7 strategic due diligence projects, and participated in 4 more

• For a PE fund and the CEO it newly appointed, developed the turnaround plan of a $700m European

apparel company, identifying key product/market combinations to drive growth, and developing a detailed

plan to reduce costs by $80m and working capital by $35m

• Coordinated and structured the three year strategic plan of a global food & drink company's

European division aiming at improving operating income by €200m

• Designed the implementation of a turnaround plan for a leading construction equipment manufacturer and

its exclusive dealer in the UK, and modelled how over 20 improvement initiatives impact market shares,

revenues and costs over 22 product lines and 7 business units