Junk Smash Burger to open in Dubai, selects PR partner

Rowan Barker has joined boutique advisory firm Media + Capital Partners as Associate Director. A former radio journalist, newsreader and Director of Media & Communications at the Tourism & Transport Forum, Rowan was most recently part of the media team at Transport for New South Wales and is in his tenth season as ground announcer for the Sydney Roosters in the NRL. He will lead some of the firm’s key accounts as well as hosting podcasts to help clients build their profiles by sharing their stories across multiple platforms. 

Despite years of investment, most sustainability initiatives fail to deliver meaningful business impact. One key reason is a disconnect between sustainability efforts and what actually drives customer decisions.

Join Telum Media and Goutam Challagalla, Professor of Strategy and Marketing and dentsu Group Chair in Sustainable Strategy and Marketing at IMD, as we explore how leading companies move beyond “green messaging” to position sustainability as a source of customer value by linking sustainability directly to customer value, improving performance, efficiency, or affordability.

For PR and communications professionals, this represents a shift from promoting sustainability as a virtue to communicating it as a tangible benefit.

Online via Zoom
Monday, 1 June 2026
⏰ 10.30am GST
⏰ 2.30pm SGT/HKT
⏰ 5.30pm AEST
⏰ 7.30pm NZT  

Register for How to communicate sustainability in ways that actually work here.

PRCA MENA has announced the agenda for its Annual Conference 2026, set to take place on Thursday, 17 September 2026, under the theme Reset the Mindset, with four core streams: Reset Power, Reset Value, Reset Imagination and Reset Future.

The one-day symposium aims to bring together senior communications leaders in both the public and private sectors, policymakers, journalists, agency heads, creators, and emerging talent. Throughout the day, discussions will examine influence, media power, agency economics, artificial intelligence, culture, geopolitical dynamics and the growing tension between visibility and credibility.

The conference will explore topics including how the Middle East is increasingly shaping its own global narrative, whether traditional models of influence still hold weight, the commercial pressures reshaping agency culture, and the growing role of artificial intelligence in both creativity and human connection. The audience can also see the launch of the PRCA MENA Mental Health Report 2026, followed by a dedicated NextGen segment focused on the future of the profession and the growing disconnect between emerging talent and traditional industry structures.

Conrad Egbert, Head of PRCA MENA, said, “Much of the industry still operates on assumptions that no longer reflect reality. How people consume information continues to change. The way influence works has changed. Trust is earned differently today and attention has become the new battlefield. Reset the Mindset is about questioning what still works, what doesn’t anymore and whether the industry is willing to confront uncomfortable truths about where it’s headed.”