Zaid A. Barqawi
I build brands, products and the commercial operations that sell them.
Twenty-five years across paper, print, tissue and FMCG in the Gulf and Levant, from mill specification to supermarket shelf. Open to commercial leadership roles.
About
I have spent twenty-five years building commercial businesses across three connected worlds: paper and print, tissue and hygiene, and food and non-food FMCG. The thread running through all of it is that I tend to end up responsible for the product itself as well as the selling of it.
Paper is where my technical depth sits. I carried specialty and fine paper for Fedrigoni, Fabriano and Gmund and learned the product properly, grammage, brightness, wet strength, grain direction, how a sheet behaves on press. In Jordan I grew Gmund to an average of two containers a month and took Fedrigoni past 30% market share. I have visited mills from Mondi and Crown Paper Mill to plants in the United States, and run a roll-to-sheet converting operation end to end.
Outside paper I have built brands from nothing and run the campaigns behind them, for clients including Subway, Qatar Foundation and the Supreme Education Council of Qatar. In FMCG I relaunched an entire food and non-food portfolio across UAE retail, developed a hypoallergenic facial tissue that beat the competition on skin sensitivity, and developed Auto-Cut with ADNP's technical lab from 20,000 to 60,000 cartons a month. I also initiated the merger that cleared one company's debt and doubled its monthly sales.
Outside work I design things, build websites and applications, and spend more time than I should finding out what AI can actually do for a commercial operation.
What I do
Product & Technical
- Cut size & copier
- Offset & printing
- Specialty & fine paper
- Tissue & hygiene
- Duplex board
- Specification & end use
- Roll-to-sheet converting
Channels & Markets
- Distributors & merchants
- Printers & converters
- Modern trade & cooperatives
- Facility management
- HoReCa & institutional
- Export & cross-border
- Private label
Commercial & Leadership
- Pricing & margin
- Forecasting & budgets
- Product development
- Brand repositioning
- Mergers & partnerships
- Team leadership
- Salesforce, SAP, ERP
Achievements
- Led tissue product development end to end, creating a hypoallergenic facial tissue positioned above competing brands.
- Held head-office relationships with Carrefour and Spinneys and secured re-registration across every UAE cooperative society, covering modern trade and the B and C class channels.
- Led thirty people within a Japan Tobacco International network covering 6,500 retail doors.
- Initiated the merger with Ittihad International Investment, owner of Crown Paper Mill, clearing all outstanding debt and doubling monthly sales from AED 2.4M to AED 4.8M.
- Won the facility management channel: Dubai Mall, Ibn Batuta Mall, Marina Mall, Atlantis and Jumeirah Group.
- Cut the range from 120 SKUs to 60 and reduced operating expenditure by 25%.
- Developed Auto-Cut with ADNP's technical lab to international standard, growing sales from 20,000 to 60,000 cartons a month.
- Led a team of five sales executives and built the brand's exposure across the whole of the UAE.
- Won the year's largest contract, supplying every Gems School with auto-cut dispenser systems.
- Created brand identities and delivered the print production behind them for commercial and institutional clients including Subway, Qatar Foundation and the Supreme Education Council of Qatar.
- Led marketing campaigns end to end for major brands, managing media channel relationships alongside the creative and print production.
- Grew Gmund to an average of two containers a month and took Fedrigoni past 30% market share in Jordan by selling to specifiers and supporting printers technically.
- Ran the cut size and copier business in A4, A3 and folio, plus reels and sheeting to specification, including a private-label programme.
- Worked alongside the group’s own printing house, which gave me a close view of production and how a specification behaves once it is on press.
- Expanded Duplex board into Jordan and Iraq.