BEYOND
THE JOB TITLE.

Marina B.

Marina B., black-and-white portrait
DUBAI, UAE

Commercial Growth, Brand & Digital Innovation Leader

With over 19 years of experience across the UAE and regional markets, I've built my career across marketing, sales, business development and commercial leadership.

Today, my work brings these disciplines together with digital transformation and AI—developing brands, identifying growth opportunities, leading teams and creating smarter ways for businesses to operate.

Explore What I Do

BUSINESS / CREATIVITY / TECHNOLOGY / PEOPLE

What I Bring Together.

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Brand Strategy & Growth

From launch to long-term growth.

Leading marketing strategy across multiple entertainment brands—from positioning and market launches to customer acquisition, campaign development and ongoing brand growth.

Different brands. Different markets. Different challenges.

A brand doesn't exist in isolation. Its positioning, audience, location and commercial objectives all shape how it goes to market.

My experience spans different stages of brand development—from introducing new concepts and expanding into new locations to building sustained customer demand. Each brings a different set of challenges, shaped by the business, its customers and the market in which it operates.

Jumble, an immersive puzzle and adventure concept, brought a distinctive proposition to Dubai. Fun City, a family entertainment brand, presented a different challenge: launching multiple locations across the GCC and India while maintaining a consistent identity across different markets.

The physical environment matters, too. A standalone destination needs to establish itself as a reason to visit, while a mall-based business operates within existing footfall, shopping behaviour and a wider retail ecosystem. I've worked across both, where understanding the customer journey and local competitive landscape is central to effective marketing.

With Xstrike, a live-action combat experience, and woo-hoo!, an interactive children's museum, the focus has extended from market launches to ongoing brand positioning, customer acquisition and growth—each requiring a different approach to its audience and purchase motivations.

X Distrikt introduces another dimension: a destination bringing together four distinct brands—woo-hoo!, Xstrike, DARE, an active adventure concept, and multiVRse, a virtual reality experience. The challenge is to establish a compelling destination proposition without losing what makes each individual brand distinctive.

Across these projects, the fundamental questions remain consistent: What is the proposition? Who is the customer? What influences their decision? How does the brand differentiate itself? And how does marketing contribute to commercial performance?

The answers change with the business, the market and the customer. The discipline behind finding them does not.

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Digital Transformation

Innovation that moves business forward.

I conceive, develop and implement digital solutions that connect departments, integrate AI and automation into business processes, and create more intuitive experiences for teams and customers.

If a process is unnecessarily complicated, I want to redesign it.

I've always been drawn to the parts of a business where things take longer than they should. An enquiry that passes through several people before anything happens. Information entered repeatedly into different systems. A customer journey that requires too many steps to reach a simple decision.

I don't see these as isolated operational inconveniences. I see opportunities to rethink how the experience works.

A significant part of my digital work has involved connecting departments through integrated workflows, developing enquiry forms that trigger automated actions, and using automation and integration platforms to make information move more effectively across the business.

I've also worked on bringing AI agents into company processes, managing how they support everyday tasks and exploring where intelligent assistance can reduce manual work and make teams more effective.

But functionality alone isn't enough for me.

I care about the interface just as much as the process behind it. Taking something complicated and turning it into a visually considered, easy-to-navigate experience is one of the parts of digital development I enjoy most.

That thinking has shaped projects I've conceived, developed and implemented across customer-facing interfaces, marketing journeys and internal processes. The objective is consistent: make interactions more contemporary, intuitive and practical, whether the person using the solution is a customer or a colleague.

And importantly, I don't believe every improvement needs a large technology project behind it. With the right understanding of the problem and the right combination of digital tools, useful solutions can be developed, tested and introduced into everyday operations.

The real achievement isn't building something digital. It's making something complicated feel simple.

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Commercial Development

From opportunity to impact.

I identify growth opportunities, develop commercial propositions and build strategic partnerships—turning ideas into viable initiatives, new revenue opportunities and long-term business value.

The opportunity is not always where you expect it.

One of the most valuable parts of commercial development is recognising potential that isn't immediately obvious. Sometimes the opportunity isn't a new market or a completely new product. It's finding a different way to create value from something a business already does well.

An individual product can become part of a broader offering. An established customer experience can evolve into something more personalised. A service designed for one location can reach new audiences through partnerships, events or alternative distribution channels.

I've worked on commercial initiatives across these different dimensions—from developing new customer propositions and packaged offerings to exploring new revenue channels, corporate relationships and strategic collaborations.

What connects them is the need to look beyond the initial idea.

A proposition has to make sense for the customer, but also for the business delivering it. Pricing, commercial viability, partner expectations, operational capabilities and the customer experience all need to work together.

My work has taken commercial opportunities from initial concept and evaluation through to proposition development, stakeholder alignment and implementation. I've learned that a commercially attractive idea isn't necessarily a practical one until those different considerations are addressed.

Partnerships are an important part of that thinking. The most valuable relationships aren't simply about reaching a larger audience. They're about finding complementary strengths, building a proposition that works for both parties and creating opportunities that neither side would necessarily develop in the same way independently.

What I enjoy most is connecting those different pieces—seeing the potential, shaping the proposition and working through what it takes to bring it into practice.

Commercial growth doesn't always require something entirely new. Sometimes it starts by seeing new possibilities in what already exists.

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People & Leadership

People, ideas and results.

Leading multidisciplinary teams across marketing, sales and creative functions—establishing direction, encouraging collaboration and translating priorities into coordinated execution.

The strongest teams don't need someone making every decision.

Over the years, I've learned that leadership is as much about developing people as it is about delivering results.

I've led teams across marketing, sales and creative functions, working with individuals who bring different personalities, strengths, experiences and ways of thinking to the table.

And that's something I've come to value.

Not everyone needs the same kind of guidance. Some people need direction and structure. Others need encouragement to trust their own judgment, the opportunity to take on greater responsibility or simply the space to approach a challenge differently.

I believe part of my responsibility as a leader is recognising those differences and helping people develop beyond the tasks they're currently assigned.

That means sharing knowledge, creating opportunities to learn, giving constructive feedback and encouraging people to take ownership of their work. It also means being willing to step back rather than becoming the person every decision depends on.

But developing individuals is only one part of building an effective team.

Much of my experience has involved connecting functions that naturally see the business from different perspectives. Marketing, sales, creative, operations and technology don't always approach a challenge in the same way—and they shouldn't have to.

What matters is establishing a shared understanding of what we're trying to achieve, why it matters and how each person's contribution fits into the bigger picture.

I've found that this becomes particularly important when introducing change. A new process, a digital solution or a different way of working can only succeed when the people involved understand it, see its value and feel confident using it.

For me, leadership requires balancing the bigger picture with the individual: setting direction while staying close enough to understand the challenges people face, and giving teams the support and autonomy to deliver.

The measure of good leadership isn't how much depends on you. It's how much becomes possible through the people around you.