SHIFT, the Saudi creative and advertising agency owned by the Riyadh based studio Telfaz11, has appointed Adel Alsayeh as Managing Director, with a mandate to lead the agency's operations in the kingdom and steer its next phase of growth. The appointment was announced on 15 September 2026, and places an operations focused executive at the head of an agency that sits inside a content production group rather than a conventional advertising holding company.
Alsayeh's brief, as set out by the agency, centres on expanding operational capacity and taking the business through a period of transformation. His stated priorities include integrating artificial intelligence into the agency's work, responding to changing client requirements, and operating in a communications market that is increasingly judged on measurement. "SHIFT has built a distinct position in the market, grounded in a strong creative culture and a deep understanding of audiences," said Alaa Fadan, chief executive and co-founder of Telfaz11. No external search firm was named in the announcement.
Neither the announcement nor the trade coverage of it set out Alsayeh's earlier career, previous employers or education, and no biographical detail beyond his new title and his mandate has been made public. What is on the record is the scope of the role: operational leadership of the agency in Saudi Arabia, within a parent company whose core business is content production rather than advertising, and responsibility for the agency's growth trajectory rather than for creative output alone.
SHIFT was founded in 2013 as a regional creative advertising and marketing agency and has worked with more than 100 local and international brands, among them Saudi Telecom Company and Alinma Bank. Telfaz11 acquired the agency in June 2023, saying at the time that the deal would combine the agency's marketing capability with its own strengths in film, television and storytelling and allow it to serve a larger group of local and international clients. Telfaz11 itself was founded in 2011 by Alaa Fadan, Ibraheem Alkhairallah and Ali Kalthami, built an audience through online series before moving into feature films and streaming, acquired the production company Last Scene Films in 2021, and has produced titles for Netflix, Inc. among others. It is based in Riyadh with an office in Dubai, and in 2023 announced an agreement with NEOM Company to produce at least nine television and film projects over three years.
The agency comes to this change with an unusual structural position: a creative shop inside a content studio, at a time when Saudi advertisers are commissioning branded entertainment alongside conventional campaigns. Appointing a managing director with an operations remit, rather than a chief creative officer, suggests the priority is capacity and process rather than creative repositioning, an inference drawn from the way the role was described rather than from any statement by the company. The explicit references to artificial intelligence and to a more measurement driven market reflect pressure on agency economics across the region, where clients are asking for more output and clearer attribution. No financial detail, client wins or headcount figures accompanied the announcement, and the agency's performance since the 2023 acquisition has not been publicly disclosed.
