I am a creative economy specialist, currently serving as a Relationship Manager for the Creative Industries at the Labor Fund of Bahrain, “Tamkeen.” My work focuses on supporting and funding creative projects across film and television, music, performing arts, visual arts, fashion, jewelry, new media, and gaming, helping serious creative ideas become sustainable, viable, and capable of generating long-term cultural and economic value.

I do not experience the creative economy from a distance. I am an active drummer, a theater actor, and a Theater of the Oppressed trainer. I remain involved in creative practice because that is where reality lives. Being a performer alongside my professional work allows me to understand the discipline, uncertainty, and invisible labor behind meaningful art, not just its outcomes. This lived experience shapes how I evaluate projects, design programs, and support creatives.

I hold a clear set of beliefs: art is a form of communication and self-expression. Every artist or artistic production must carry a clear message, a distinct voice, and evidence of a creative journey. I lose interest when art is treated as a hobby, when creativity is used to mask a lack of purpose, or when work is driven solely by popularity. Being born into an artistic family whose income came entirely from art, I developed this conviction at a young age. Although I have always been surrounded by artists of all kinds throughout my life, I first grasped the true scale of the creative economy while visiting places like Disneyland Paris, Six Flags in Maryland, and Broadway in New York, where stories extend into entire ecosystems of experiences, labor, intellectual property, and revenue. It was a clear demonstration of what happens when creativity is taken seriously as the foundation of an economy.

Academically, I am a Fulbright Scholar and hold a Master of Science in Marketing, with a minor in Culture, Communication, and Media, and a concentration in Art Management. I also studied Political Economy in Prague through the Fund for American Studies, an experience that reshaped how I understand culture, power dynamics, and storytelling in a global context. Prior to that, I participated in the Middle East Partnership Initiative’s Student Leaders Program at Georgetown University, where I studied affective community work, civil society, and mass communication as tools for change. Alongside community work in Bahrain and the United States, this background informs how I approach funding, policy, and program design in the creative sector.

I am drawn to art that carries weight, work grounded in craft, context, and intention rather than buzzwords or attention-seeking. I believe the creative economy should be a space where people freely express ideas, frustrations, and dreams while also building careers, creating jobs, and sustaining industries around stories worth telling. The best stories are still ahead of us, and my work is dedicated to finding them, supporting them, and bringing them to life.