Osama Saeed is a global communicator and public relations professional. Currently, he is Head of International and Media Relations at Al Jazeera, one of the world’s leading media corporations. Under his tenure, the network has enjoyed the most successful period of media coverage and acclaim in its history.
Osama promoted Al Jazeera English’s coverage of the Arab Spring to ensure the world was watching. Since then, the channel has become recognized for the global breadth of its stories from its 70+ bureaus. A string of awards have followed including a Peabody, a DuPont, the Roosevelt Foundation’s Four Freedoms Award, and RTS News Channel of the Year. AJE was the first international channel to win the latter, beating BBC and Sky on their home territory.
His responsibilities include corporate communications, promoting content, and public affairs. With his team, he’s organised high-impact campaigns in diverse cultures including the US, MENA, India and APAC. He also deals deftly with the various crises that inevitably affect renowned organisations like Al Jazeera.
Osama’s journey into PR began in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks when as a university student he was called into TV studios in his native Scotland to help make sense of the atrocity, and to bring communities together. Two years later, he was a volunteer organiser and press officer for the historic protests in London against the prospect of the Iraq war.
These early experiences instilled into Osama the importance of narrative, positioning, and story-telling. He went on to work as an advisor for one of the best communicators in politics, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. He’s since helped get messages across in the worlds of business, finance and media - often working where they all meet.
Osama’s work has seen him listed as one of Scotland's Top 100 thinkers and opinion formers by the Scotsman newspaper, and one of the country’s “Brightest and Best” by the Sunday Herald.
