Hesham Ellabban is an award-winning creative leader and founder of KAIRO, one of the region’s most recognized independent agencies.
Just one year into his career, a greeting card he created for Saatchi was showcased at Cannes Lions — Egypt’s and the region’s first-ever appearance on the global stage. He went on to win major honors with Saatchi Cairo, JWT Cairo, and Leo Burnett Cairo, including three Dubai Lynx Grand Prix, a CLIO, and Egypt’s first two Cannes Lions.
Since founding KAIRO in 2012, the agency has become one of the most awarded in the Middle East, earning Independent Agency of the Year twice and recognition at Cannes Lions in the Film category — an achievement reached only a few times in Egypt’s history, two of which Hesham led. He has also served twice as a CLIO Awards juror and previously published a weekly short story column titled What If in Almasry Aluoum. Today, Hesham continues to build stories across advertising and film, with both a feature and documentary in development.
At the BRIDGE Summit, he will join Ali Cheikhali, Creative Strategy & Innovation Lead at Google MENA, for a KAIRO × Google session on creative storytelling and GenAI. They will showcase “A small wow a day makes the day okay!” — a thriller TV ad produced entirely with Gemini video tools — and unpack how AI is reshaping the craft and future of storytelling.
What happens when the ancient craft of storytelling collides with the most powerful creative tools ever built? A KAIRO Talk powered by Google, this presentation shows how AI expands creative possibilities while keeping storytelling fundamentally human. Through an AI-generated short film and a behind-the-scenes breakdown, the speakers show how ideas move from insight to strategy to fully realized worlds using today’s AI tools. Mood boards, characters, storyboards, and cinematic choices can now be created in minutes, yet still depend on human taste and imagination.
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