In March, the International Business Award Cases&Faces 2025 ceremony took place in Miami, United States — an annual international award that gathers more than a thousand submissions from different countries and recognizes leaders in business, technology, and the creative industries. This year, in the Executive of the Year (Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations) category, the winner was marketer and project manager Mohammad Abbasi.
We spoke with him about why strong advertising begins not with budget, but with discipline of thought, how his experience in Ukraine shaped his professional style, and what, in his opinion, truly separates “marketing as a craft” from marketing that genuinely changes a business.
— Mohammad, congratulations on your win. What does the Cases&Faces award mean to you?
— Thank you. For me, first of all, it is an external validation that my work is not just a set of separate “campaigns,” but a system. Cases&Faces evaluates not only the fact of success, but also the innovation of the approach, its impact, and the long-term nature of the results — and that is exactly what resonates with me.
And there is another important point: it is an international environment. When you are evaluated in the context of different markets, different standards, and different approaches, it is always an honest test.
— You were born in Iran and finished school very early. Why Ukraine?
— I grew up in a small industrial city in southern Iran. I finished school at 16 and quite quickly realized that I wanted to go beyond a local сценарio. At that time, Ukraine was an opportunity for me: education, a new culture, a new language — but most importantly, a chance to build a professional trajectory from scratch.
I enrolled at the National Aviation University, majoring in international economic relations. There were many subjects there that truly influenced me: marketing, management, advertising, PR, foreign economic activity. It gave me a broad perspective.
— Your first serious professional experience was at Azot-Technology. What shaped your style there?
— That is where I very quickly understood one simple thing: marketing is responsibility, not “creativity for the sake of creativity.” I was dealing with strategy, tactics, and finance: developing campaigns, selecting platforms, budgets, contracts with contractors, supervision, and performance analytics.
It disciplined me. I learned to think like this: if you launch a campaign, you are responsible for the result, for the numbers, and for the brand’s reputation.
— In 2015, you joined the international Shangrila project and quickly became head of the marketing direction. What was the main challenge?
— When a project operates across different continents, the main challenge is not just to “pour traffic,” but to build a system that adapts to the market, the culture, the regulations, and the audience’s behavioral patterns.
At that time, I worked a lot with complex turnkey strategies, negotiations, contracts, client development, and scaling. And yes, at a certain point I made a choice in favor of practice: I focused on work because I could see the real impact and the pace of growth.
— After 2018, a lot changed because of regulatory decisions. How do you navigate such “breaks” in a career?
— Calmly, but soberly. If reality changes, you either adapt or waste time. In 2018, the company closed its office in Ukraine and moved its operations to Georgia — I left, and in 2019 I joined Wombat Digital, where I still work today.
It was a normal transition: a new team, different projects, different tasks — but the same principle: to work systematically.
— In 2022, you moved to Los Angeles. What was the hardest part about continuing your career in the U.S.?
— First of all, the pace and the competition. There are many strong professionals in the U.S., but there is also an advantage: if you deliver results, it becomes noticeable very quickly.
In Los Angeles, I continued my career as the head of the new ALPHA 77 project, where we combine marketing with educational products. For me, that is logical: I have always wanted not just to “make advertising,” but to explain the mechanics, to teach people how to think, and to build strategies that outlive changes in platforms and trends.
— You often talk about “precision advertising” and advanced targeting. What do you mean by these words?
— I will explain it simply. Most people lose not because they have too little budget, but because they do not understand who they are speaking to and why.
“Precision advertising” is when:
- you clearly know who you are showing the message to;
- you understand a person’s motivation and their internal culture;
- you build a chain of actions, not just one banner;
- you measure results not by likes, but by business indicators.
I relate to an approach where marketing relies on psychology, data, and technology — not only on intuition.
— In short, what is your main professional philosophy today?
— Precision matters more than volume.
In a world where everyone is shouting, the one who wins is the one who speaks correctly — at the right moment and to the right person.
And one more thing: I believe in the long game. You can “hit the mark” once. But it is far more interesting to build a system that delivers results again and again, even when algorithms, markets, and the rules of the game change.
— What comes next after the victory?
— A victory is not the finish line. It is a marker that you are moving in the right direction. What comes next is more scaling, more educational products, more practical cases, and most importantly, more responsibility for what you bring into the profession.
Background: Mohammad Abbasi is a marketer with more than 12 years of experience in advertising and marketing; he has worked in Ukraine and in international markets, and since 2022 he has been developing projects in the United States. In 2025, he received the Executive of the Year — Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations award at the Cases&Faces 2025 International Business Award.