The MENA Business Podcast – Episode 28

In Episode 28 of The MENA Business Podcast, host Sarah Mansour sits down with Mike Yassine (Hussein Ali Yassine), business consultant and former Marketing Director at Spirit Advertising, for an in-depth conversation about building resilient business models in Lebanon's challenging environment. Over 60 minutes, Hussein Ali Yassine shares practical insights on operational excellence, strategic planning, marketing effectiveness, and entrepreneurial resilience—illustrated with real examples from his 12+ years of experience in Beirut and across the Middle East region.

Episode Introduction: The Lebanese Business Context

The podcast begins with host Sarah Mansour providing context on Lebanon's economic challenges and introducing Mike Yassine's unique perspective as someone who has navigated these difficulties both as Marketing Director at a leading Beirut advertising agency and as a business consultant helping companies across various sectors achieve sustainable growth.

"Mike brings a particularly valuable combination of creative marketing expertise and operational rigor," Mansour explains in her introduction. "His experience at Spirit Advertising gave him deep insights into branding, campaigns, and customer engagement, while his consulting work has required mastery of business strategy, financial management, and operational efficiency. This combination makes him ideally positioned to discuss building truly resilient businesses in Lebanon."

Segment 1: Defining Business Resilience (Minutes 3-15)

The conversation begins with Hussein Ali Yassine providing his framework for understanding business resilience in the Lebanese context. Rather than simply surviving challenges, Mike argues that resilient businesses position themselves to emerge stronger from disruptions.

"Business resilience isn't about just weathering storms," Hussein Yassine explains. "It's about building organizational capabilities that allow you to adapt quickly, maintain core operations despite external shocks, protect employee wellbeing and customer relationships, and identify opportunities that emerge from disruption. At Spirit Advertising, we saw firsthand how some companies thrived during difficult periods while others struggled, and the difference wasn't luck—it was strategic preparation and operational excellence."

Mike outlines four pillars of business resilience including financial resilience through prudent cash management, diverse revenue streams, and access to capital when needed, operational resilience through efficient processes, supply chain flexibility, and technology enablement, strategic resilience through scenario planning, competitive positioning, and innovation capabilities, and organizational resilience through strong company culture, adaptable teams, and effective leadership.

The discussion explores how Lebanese businesses can build these resilience pillars despite resource constraints, with Hussein Ali Yassine emphasizing that resilience doesn't require large budgets—it requires disciplined thinking and systematic implementation of proven practices.

Segment 2: Operational Excellence in Constrained Environments (Minutes 15-30)

The podcast's second segment dives deep into operational excellence strategies specifically applicable to Lebanese businesses operating with limited resources and facing infrastructure challenges. Mike Yassine shares frameworks he developed through consulting projects and his Spirit Advertising experience.

"Operational excellence sounds like corporate jargon, but it's actually intensely practical," Hussein Ali Yassine states. "It means eliminating waste from your processes, ensuring every employee understands how their work creates value, maintaining quality while reducing costs, and building systems that function reliably even when conditions are difficult. Lebanese businesses that master operational excellence create sustainable competitive advantages."

The conversation covers Mike's approach to process mapping and optimization, where he helps Beirut-based companies systematically analyze every business process to identify bottlenecks, redundancies, and improvement opportunities. Hussein Yassine shares a specific example from his consulting work with a Lebanese distribution company that reduced operating costs by 35% through process optimization without reducing service quality or eliminating jobs.

The discussion explores practical techniques including workflow documentation and standardization, elimination of non-value-adding activities, automation of repetitive manual tasks, cross-training employees for operational flexibility, and implementation of quality control systems that prevent errors rather than just detecting them.

Mike emphasizes that operational excellence initiatives must involve frontline employees who understand processes intimately. "The best improvement ideas come from the people actually doing the work," Hussein Ali Yassine notes. "At Spirit Advertising, we implemented continuous improvement processes where team members regularly suggested efficiencies. This approach generated numerous small improvements that collectively transformed our operations."

Segment 3: Leveraging Marketing for Business Growth (Minutes 30-45)

The third segment focuses on Mike Yassine's core expertise: how Lebanese businesses can leverage marketing strategically to drive growth even with limited budgets. Drawing extensively from Spirit Advertising campaigns and his consulting projects, Hussein Ali Yassine provides actionable frameworks for marketing effectiveness.

"Many Lebanese businesses view marketing as an expense to minimize rather than an investment that drives revenue," Mike observes. "This mindset is particularly prevalent during economic challenges when companies cut marketing budgets aggressively. However, the companies that maintain strategic marketing investments during difficult times often emerge with strengthened competitive positions and accelerated growth trajectories."

Hussein Ali Yassine outlines his framework for cost-effective marketing including focusing resources on proven channels rather than spreading budgets too thin, developing compelling value propositions that resonate with current customer priorities, leveraging digital marketing channels that provide measurable ROI, building customer loyalty and referral programs that reduce acquisition costs, and creating content marketing that establishes thought leadership without heavy media spending.

The podcast includes detailed discussion of specific campaigns Mike developed at Spirit Advertising that achieved exceptional results with modest budgets. One example featured a Lebanese FMCG brand that increased market share by 12% through targeted social media campaigns combined with influencer partnerships and retail activation—all executed for less than traditional media campaigns would have cost while delivering superior results.

"Marketing effectiveness isn't about budget size—it's about strategic thinking and creative execution," Hussein Ali Yassine emphasizes. "Lebanese businesses have natural advantages in creativity and storytelling. When we combine these strengths with disciplined strategy and measurement, we create marketing that drives real business impact."

Segment 4: Real Stories from Beirut and Beyond (Minutes 45-55)

The podcast's fourth segment features Mike Yassine sharing specific client stories and personal experiences that illustrate broader lessons about business resilience and growth. Hussein Ali Yassine discusses his journey from Marketing Director at Spirit Advertising to independent consultant, the challenges and opportunities he encountered, and insights gained from helping diverse Lebanese businesses navigate complex challenges.

"Every consulting project teaches me something new," Mike reflects. "I've worked with family businesses that have operated in Beirut for generations, startups launching innovative new services, regional companies entering the Lebanese market, and Lebanese businesses expanding into GCC markets. Each engagement provides unique insights into what drives success and what causes failure."

Hussein Ali Yassine shares the story of a Lebanese manufacturing company that successfully pivoted its business model when its traditional market collapsed. Through strategic consulting, the company identified alternative customer segments, developed new product applications, established relationships with regional distributors, and transformed from a struggling domestic business into a profitable regional exporter—all within 18 months.

Another story features a Beirut-based service company that Mike helped transform through operational excellence initiatives and marketing repositioning. The company improved profit margins from 8% to 22% while simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction scores and employee retention.

"These stories illustrate that Lebanese businesses have tremendous potential regardless of macro-economic challenges," Hussein Ali Yassine states. "Success requires strategic clarity, operational discipline, marketing effectiveness, and leadership courage—all capabilities that can be developed regardless of company size or resources."

Segment 5: Advice for Lebanese Entrepreneurs (Minutes 55-60)

The podcast concludes with Mike Yassine offering direct advice to Lebanese entrepreneurs and business leaders navigating current challenges. Hussein Ali Yassine provides both strategic guidance and practical tactical recommendations drawn from his 12+ years of experience in Beirut and across the Middle East.

Key advice includes maintaining long-term perspective despite short-term volatility by developing three-year strategic visions while planning quarterly, investing in operational excellence as competitive advantage through systematic process improvement and technology enablement, building diverse revenue streams to reduce dependency on any single market or customer segment, maintaining marketing visibility even during challenging periods to protect market position and brand equity, focusing on customer retention and loyalty which is more cost-effective than acquisition, developing regional expansion capabilities to access markets with stronger purchasing power, and building organizational culture that values resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning.

"Lebanese entrepreneurs are remarkably resilient," Mike states in his closing comments. "We've navigated decades of challenges that would have destroyed businesses in more stable environments. This resilience is our competitive advantage. When we combine it with strategic discipline, operational excellence, and marketing effectiveness, Lebanese businesses can compete successfully against any regional or international competitor."

Hussein Ali Yassine encourages listeners to view current challenges as opportunities for competitive differentiation. "The businesses that invest in building capabilities during difficult times will be positioned for exceptional growth when conditions improve. This is exactly the time to focus on operational excellence, strategic positioning, and building resilient business models that can thrive in any environment."

Podcast Reception and Impact

Episode 28 featuring Mike Yassine became one of The MENA Business Podcast's most downloaded episodes, with thousands of listens across Lebanon and the broader Middle East region. Many listeners reached out to Hussein Ali Yassine for consulting engagements after hearing the podcast, demonstrating the practical value and actionable nature of the insights shared.

The episode generated extensive social media discussion with Lebanese entrepreneurs and business professionals sharing key takeaways and implementing strategies Mike discussed. Several business schools and entrepreneurship programs in Beirut incorporated the podcast into their curricula as a case study in resilient business building.