The Woman behind the Fame Republic

A young lady, who was able to climb the ladder of success so fast, no one actually believed it. She is considered by the Arab media as the youngest booming Marketing Director within the entertainment Market. Her experiences differ from Music Production companies such as Rotana to international advertising agencies such as Fortune Promo Seven to Multinationals in FMCGS such as Unilever. A stylish guru stars truly admire, and a trend setter; not only in her personal style but in her Marketing tactics. Sarah was quoted by many of the stars that she managed such as; Amr Diab and Mohamed Fouad that she is the “black horse” of any star that she signs with or consults. A 27 year old single business women who is as we speak the partner and Managing Director of the first Entertainment service agency in the Middle East partnering with one of the strongest producers in the Middle east Tamer Mursi the owner of Synergy advertising agency and the synergy series production. Sarah speaks for the first time about her success story…
Name: Sarah El Sayed El Tabakh
Horoscope: Virgo
Birthday: 7 September
Relationship Status: Single
Favorite color: Rainbow =)
Job Titles:
• Producer
• Marketing Professor
• Marketing and Media Consultant
• Image and Fashion Consultant

Sarah. Tell us about your Self!
My father, Captain Sayed El Tabakh is one of the best football coaches who introduced and trained a large number of well-known football players, such as Nader El Sayed, Khaled El Ghandour, Eslam El Shatter, Hady Khashaba, Mohamed Barakat and many more. My mother is a Turkish/Egyptian lady and an interior designer who halted the progress of practicing interior designing long ago and decided to focus on bringing up her children. I only have one sister; Salma who works as an account director in one of the prominent advertising agencies and by an absolute twist of fate - we are both working in the same field. At times I envy her success, but she is my older sister =)… I was brought up in Alexandria and as a child I was always known as the smart kid in school. I graduated from Kawmeya Language School, and then joined two different universities, the AAST, major Marketing and the Faculty of Arts majoring Interior designing. By attending at AAST, I understood that Art can be a talent and a side hobby for me, but learning how to promote a hobby requires business knowledge. I believed that Marketing is what I need to study, so I focused in the AAST and was introduced to Dr. Dalia Farag were I became later one of the founders of the Arab Academy Marketing association with her and with other marketing students. We learned in this association the actual professional environment, the PR practice rules, how to manage real project and how to create tailored events. Having development partners for the association such as Unilever,Vodafone and P&G gave us an edge of working with multinational cultures at a young age. I started my part time training from my second semester and full time by the last year of college. I also joined later the Aiesec, which helped me to shape my personality and was taught how to deal with different nationalities and accept being different.

I graduated and joined the AAST MBA program major marketing, and worked on my DBA on “The integrated Marketing Communication in Egypt and its impact on the entertainment market”. I then joined a diploma of broadcasting and Advertising in the AUC. I did a long distance diploma with University of California in the following sectors:
Entertainment Business and its legal affairs
Entertainment marketing and distribution
Artist Management
Music Business and independent music production
Channel and Radio Marketing
And I recently emphasized my studies in London in a diploma for Fashion and Image consultancy.

Sarah, tell us about your beginning… How did you start working in the entertainment industry?
Absolute Luck… I was out with a friend of mine for lunch in Cairo, with Dina Hayek the singer and her brother, and during that day I was introduced by Dina to the Deputy Marketing, Sales, Distribution of Rotana, Essam El Maawad and his Vice president Khaled Agha that offered me a job as an Audio Marketing Manager. I considered the offer, and joined a month later. Then I was promoted as the marketing and media Manager of Rotana Corporate in Egypt.

What do you think of the entertainment business in Egypt?
My legitimate desire is to say it’s the finest atmosphere - but unfortunately I can’t. The entertainment business was controlled, until recently by foreign investors, which dominated the market. We were introduced and injected by their media, to what they want us to know and like. I would say that recently when Egyptian businessmen started to endow large amounts of money in clean media, such as Dr Sayed Badawi who launched the Number one Egyptian network Al Hayah TV Network. This encouraged a lot of other investors to start working. It created a very competitive environment within the TV sector, which positively affected the market itself. Regarding, the music sector, its corrupted because of the pirates and illegal downloads of music, no copyrights, and no official authority actions for illegal downloads. It’s still a mess. But even if; Management and Live percentages are becoming the main source of cash cowing in this business which substitutes to level the degree of loss. Major companies in music production like foreign companies acting in Egypt only act as a banker, they spend money but with zero awareness in the direction money is paid, they don’t even understand how to create a branding strategy for the stars they sign up with. They don’t position their stars in the right places, and they don’t work on their image. A long time ago we had major Egyptian producers such Mohsen Gaber, Tarek Abdallah, Nasr Mahrous, Nassif Kosman and many others, who introduced most of the Super stars in our current market. I would ask those Egyptian Producers to start introducing new Egyptian talents and give them full support. I am sure that Egypt has major talents that are yet to be explored. Also new comers like Ahmed Desouey should start producing again and get every part of support from all media. We should start working together for the benefit of Egypt and the Egyptian musical heritage, not to give our royalties to any foreigners. I love what’s happening with the independent labels and encourage more people to go in this direction. What most of people don’t know, is that major stars such as Beyounce , Madonna and others were introduced by a small independent companies. I would completely support what Hassan Al Shafie is doing with his new record label. Ahmed Fahmi and Samba and their new record label, Cube music that is producing for WAMA all those independents labels will do something – I am positive.

Is it true that you are a dear friend of Amr Diab and that you were his marketing and media consultant for a couple of years? Yes it’s true. After working in Rotana for a couple of years I resigned believing that being inside of Rotana I won’t be able to explore different market aspects, and wouldn’t further develop myself, so I resigned. During the couple of years in Rotana I was the creator of Amr diab’s “Kamel Kalamk” and “El Leilady” album Campaigns. Amr Diab later asked me to be part of his team; I was thrilled and became his Marketing and Media Consultant. Not only Amr is a Dear Friend but Zeina Ashour his wife is a special person to my heart I wish I can be half this woman… An exceptionally remarkable, strong character, a perfect wife, and an adorable mother… I would take her as an icon. What did you learn From Amr Diab? A h h h h…A l o o o o o t t ! ! Determination of success is his main statement! Amr Diab is a legend that knows how to carry himself well in every single way; I learned from him that you always have to strive to be number one! It’s not by luck, it’s by dedication and hard work, and above all it’s when you believe in your dream. I consider Amr as the main reason I am still working in this business, his direction and his belief in me made me believe that I can make it, I will always be thankful and will always be grateful. Does working in the show business have any disadvantages, tell us about it 1- Timing - Being a Marketing professor at the Arab academy I teach Public Relation, Marketing Research and Consumer Behavior requires waking up at 7 am in

the morning and working in the show business requires sleeping at 3am which kills me.
2- Professionalism - You rarely find professionals who speak your language or comes from your educational or social background for this reason, it takes time for them to understand what you are trying to say.
3- Psychology factor - Dealing with stars requires a lot of psychology; I must also admit that working with products that have seven senses. The product can talk and reject major ideas that would have been great success!

Tell us more about your Partner ship with Tamer Mursi, and Fame Republic?
Tamer Mursi is the owner of synergy productions and synergy advertising agency, his production company produced Sherif Mounir’s “Alb Mayet” series, Soumaya al Khasab “Hadf Bahr 2009”, “Azmet Sokar”, Mohamed Fouad “Aghla men Hayati”, and Sherif Mounir “Bara Al donia” 2010 and currently he is the producer of the upcoming series for Adel Emam, Mohamed Henadi and other surprises yet to come for Ramadan 2011. First I thank Tamer for his confidence in me to be a partner and a managing director of our Fame Republic. Tamer is a businessman who is always keen to introduce new concepts and support fresh new ideas. Tamer knew my job requirements and my consultancy with the stars long time ago and offered to take it into a more professional aspect by opening an agency together and it all started from there. Fame Republic is considered to be the first professional entertainment service agency Fame Republic is the result of 8 years experience working in entertainment; it’s a dream of introducing the professional aspect th at we miss in the entertainment business.

Our Believe “We, FAME REPUBLIC, are a consultancy agency; an insistent and determined organization that proactively strives towards excellence in every commitment it partakes upon itself to fulfill. We will maintain our focus and do what we believe we do best, “make things happen”.” Fame Republic: is the first entertainment service agency that serves several entertainment divisions such as sports, TV and Satellite channels, Fashion business, artist and talents management, the agency also acts as a PR and media consultants for its clients we also provide a semi annual Entertainment Market research. Taking about Fame Republic means that we are taking about a fullintegrated company that serves most sectors in the entertainment business. We have our international strategic partners in some divisions and some regional offices that act on our behalf across the region providing maximum input for our clients in the MENA and internationally.

Sarah. Tell us about your program Stage that was airing on al hayah TV network, how did the idea come and how was its impact?
“Stage El Hafla” is a fresh musical show that supports young talents from different regions. We wanted to create a hub were young talents can prove them selves on Stage. Staring some super stars in several episodes to support them. I was asked from Mohamed Abdel Metal , Managing Director of the TV network and Ehab Bahgat the Director of production and programs to come up with a simple musical idea that involves interaction and can be entertaining for its audience that targets young audience. We studied the target segment and came up with a live stage show in studio between the star and his fans with lots of interaction having the beautiful Sally Shahien asking the star light questions that suits the program format. With a creative directors eye of Mohamed Saed and Ehab Bahgat being on top of everything we were able to complete the equation and created the right format Impact was great we were rated in the 4th rank best-viewed program for weeks among strong programs such as masr al naharda and 90 MIN and othe s; being ranked above such programs was a great success that we all shared.

We heard you are working recently as a line producer in 365 Youm Men Al sa3ada, starring Ahmed Ezz and Donia Samier Ghanem, tell us about this project?
Being the consultant and manager for Said El Marouk, I automatically work with him as a line producer in any project. Said is a great director and a very very close friend, his wife is my sister and I consider them family. The movie is written by the great scriptwriter Youssef Maati, it’s a Romantic light comedy movie with a great directors elucidation. You better wait and watch it - wish us luck and I’m sure that DG will be invited to watch the premiere by January.

What are you currently working on right now? Are there any other new projects we don’t know about?
So many! On top of all that a big TV show that will be a trendsetter later for most entertainment programs… I won’t talk about it much now; I don’t want to spoil the surprise. But my recent project that I’m preparing is the album of Assma Al Manawar a great Moroccan singer with a great voice and a great CV of Duets with Khathem El Saher “Al Mahkama” and Rashed El Maged “Khayna” beside we are working on the album plan that includes the photo shoot, the clip and the media planning for the album launch. Assma is a great talented well educated singer that you will recently hear about her a lot in Egypt, she is currently preparing for the launch of her Moroccan – Khaleji album then we will release a bullet Egyptian hit.

Who are your best friends in the Field of Entertainment!
I have a lot of close friends in the field, all are dear friends to my heart but my best friends are the Alexandrian girls I was brought up with. Kenzy Kabbary , Nayrouz Rizk , Nevien those are who I call best friends.

What’s Your Dream?
To teach entertainment Business to those who needs it, work on the image of the industry it self and contribute in improving the entertainment production quality in Egypt. I wish I can train young fresh graduates in my agency to become more professionals within the business itself.

Aren’t you afraid from competition?
I have set the standards and the benchmark for anyone who will come later; I introduced new knowledge in this business. At least in where I stand, I wish I could compete.

What’s your quote in life?
“If you want it so bad - you will get it”
“If you have the will you have the power!”

Is there anything you want to say!
I would like to encourage that anyone who believes that he/she is talented and wants to work in the entertainment business to contact me. Fame Republic opens its doors to everyone who is eager to learn and is keen to succeed