APCO Worldwide, the Washington based global advisory and advocacy firm, has appointed John Defterios as Chairman for the Middle East and North Africa, elevating the former CNN business anchor and emerging markets editor to the senior representative role in one of its priority regions. The appointment was announced on 15 September 2026. Defterios, who joined the firm as a senior adviser in July 2021, will continue as global lead of Storybook Studio, its in house content production operation, which produces branded documentaries and live coverage from international forums.
The firm framed the move around client demand. "Clients around the world increasingly see MENA as a region of growing economic, political and strategic importance," said Evan Kraus, the firm's president. Samer El Hachem, president of its Middle East and North Africa business, said the new chairman's "mandate is clear and immediate", built around two priorities: supporting new business development through his regional network, and acting as a senior adviser to the firm's team and its clients on strategic matters. Defterios described the region as "a fast-growing global financial, trade, energy and artificial intelligence hub". No external search firm was named in the announcement, which drew on the firm's existing senior ranks.
Defterios graduated from the University of Southern California in 1984 and began in television news at Reuters Television, where he worked from 1984 to 1992 as a European correspondent and as special series producer for a United States public television business programme. He joined CNN in 1992 as a correspondent in New York, hosted World Business Today from London between 1994 and 1996, and was a principal anchor for the network's financial news channel. He launched Marketplace Middle East in October 2007 and moved to the network's Abu Dhabi bureau in 2011, presenting Global Exchange and latterly serving as emerging markets editor before leaving in 2021 after some 35 years with the network. His reporting covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War from Kuwait and the September 11 attacks, and he was the first global broadcast journalist to report from Iran's oil fields after the 2015 nuclear agreement. He has served as a World Economic Forum senior energy fellow and global media leader, and sits on the board of the Stern Stewart Institute in Germany.
APCO Worldwide was founded in 1984 by Margery Kraus, was acquired by Grey Global Group in 1991 and became independent through a buyout in 2004. Headquartered in Washington, it describes itself as an independent, majority women owned firm with more than 1,200 employees operating in 80 markets, advising corporations, governments and non profit organisations on public affairs, strategic communications and crisis management. Brad Staples has been chief executive since 2016. The firm has worked in the Middle East and North Africa for more than two decades and has offices in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Doha, Dubai, Manama and Riyadh.
The appointment is reputational rather than operational: Defterios keeps his content production remit and adds business development and client counsel, while El Hachem continues to run the regional business day to day. That division suggests, by inference rather than on the firm's own account, that the firm is using the chairmanship to open doors at the level of sovereign wealth funds, ministries and regional conglomerates, where a three decade broadcasting record and a long established Gulf network are the asset being bought. The firm disclosed no regional revenue, headcount or growth figures, so the scale of the opportunity it describes cannot be verified independently. What is verifiable is the weight of its regional commitment: six offices, more than twenty years in the market, and a decision to install a dedicated regional chairman.
