Dubai-based production company MFORMEDIA has appointed entertainment executive Ziad Kebbi as Managing Director, launching a major transformation focused on original intellectual property and a broader content strategy.
Kebbi will oversee MFORMEDIA’s operations, expanded production slate and delivery across its four key areas: non-scripted entertainment, scripted content, digital media and AI-enabled production. Managing Partners Khalil Homeissy and Ralph Matar will continue to lead the company’s overall strategy and key industry relationships.
The move comes as the global content industry undergoes significant changes driven by artificial intelligence, evolving platform economics and rapidly changing audience habits. For MFORMEDIA, the response is a shift toward an IP-first model while retaining its established role as a producer and format partner for broadcasters, platforms and streamers across the Middle East and beyond.
Ziad Kebbi Joins MFORMEDIA
Lebanese-born Ziad Kebbi brings more than 18 years of experience in the MENA entertainment industry. His previous leadership positions include Managing Director of Endemol Middle East, President of Sony Pictures Television Arabia and CEO of Talpa Middle East.
His career includes nine seasons of The Voice Arabia, one of the most successful international format adaptations in Arab television, as well as experience developing original IP and bringing major international entertainment formats to audiences across the region.
The appointment marks a new chapter for MFORMEDIA, which has spent the past decade building a strong production network in the Middle East. The company has worked across television and digital content for broadcasters, brands and global platforms, and now aims to build on that production expertise by developing and owning more original IP.
With its new IP-first strategy, MFORMEDIA is positioning itself to respond to the changing needs of the Middle Eastern and global content market while expanding its presence across scripted, non-scripted, digital and AI-enabled production.
Ralph Matar, Managing Partner, comments: “Khalil and I have built this company on a simple promise: deliver, every time, at the highest standard. That promise earned us the trust of the region’s most demanding clients, and that trust is our foundation. Bringing Ziad in is how we honor it. You protect what you have built by preparing it for what comes next, and there is no one better prepared for what comes next than Ziad.”
Khalil Homeissy, Managing Partner, adds: “This industry is moving faster than it ever has, and the companies that will lead it are the ones that combine deep production craft with real creative networks across the region and beyond. Ziad brings both. He has developed, sold, and delivered some of the biggest entertainment properties this market has seen. With him leading our operations and our slate, MFORMEDIA becomes something rare in this region: a company that can take an idea from first spark to screen, on any platform, at any scale.”
Ziad Kebbi, Managing Director, says: “What drew me to MFORMEDIA is what Khalil and Ralph have built: a real production company, with real delivery muscle and relationships earned over a decade. The region is living its most exciting chapter, and the next great wave of Arabic content will belong to those who can move across genres and platforms without compromising on craft. My focus is exactly that: building on this foundation to create, source and produce content across non-scripted, scripted, and digital, shaped by the tools and thinking of what is coming, not what has been. The best stories from this region have not been told yet. We intend to tell them.”
