There are many things about Nazeer Suliman, MD of strategic media planning & buying agency Universal McCann (UM), that make him stand out. Besides his wit, boyish looks and charm, Suliman is the only black person heading an international media agency in SA. At 33, he's also the youngest.
UM is foreign-owned. The SA media and advertising landscape is split among the UK's WPP and US-based Omnicom and IPG, which owns UM's parent company McCann Worldgroup.
I meet Suliman at Vanilla, a new restaurant in the Rosebank Mall. He's five minutes late and apologises profusely. His excuse? Getting out of the office was a real mission. "There's so much to do," he says, removing his sunglasses and putting his laptop bag on the broad table.
Suliman prefers to tell things as they are, evident, too, in his views of the slow pace of transformation in his industry.
"I don't think people understand that it's not about the numbers but diversity, and the value this brings to your company," he says. "You need to appreciate that to see and understand the value of having a multicultural environment."
With its multi coloured walls and modern furniture, Vanilla looks like a page from a décor magazine. I join Suliman in choosing an Appletiser, a brand he handled during his junior years at Ogilvy.
Nazeer Suliman
It's been 2½ years since the rising star was appointed MD of UM. He joined as GM in 2007, only to be promoted a few months later. Perhaps his prematurely grey temples attest to the high-pressure nature of the job and the sector.
But Suliman says the past few years have been "fantastic. It is nice to accomplish things."
Among these was the launch of UM Connect, a digital arm, last year. In 2008, UM was one of the finalists for the FM AdFocus media agency of the year award. Suliman's aim is to scoop the award this year.
"The past two years have been about putting certain processes in place and bedding down a few things. What I wanted to create was an agency that believes in staying ahead of the pack, one that has an embedded culture of curiosity about how we can do things better."
His other target is growing UM's client base, which includes L'Oréal, Telkom, MasterCard and General Motors.
Having started his media career at Ogilvy, Suliman was mentored by Robyn Putter, the revered former CEO of the giant advertising firm.
He left Ogilvy, where he handled Unilever, Avis and Appletiser, for a two-year stint in London, working at the BBC's innovation & learning division.
Upon his return to SA, he worked for media agencies Notabene and MindShare across a range of clients, including Nike, Nestlé and First National Bank, before heading media management at Cell C.
In 2008, a year after joining UM, Suliman became the only South African to be included in that year's 21 Agency Innovators short list compiled by the UK-based Internationalist catalogue. Its objective is to highlight how innovative thinking is not limited to age, geographical location or rank in a company. Nominations are made by the industry.
HOW HE CHILLS
 Loves listening to music
Enjoys spending time with his family
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Suliman has been involved in child and human rights activism since his teens. Had he not entered the media industry, he says, he would have been a human rights lawyer.
Suliman has represented SA at a number of international conferences. These include the 2nd World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria, in 1993 and the Organisation for African Unity's Conference on Assistance to African Children, in Dakar, Senegal, the year before.
A married father of two, Suliman spends leisure time either travelling or indulging in his biggest passion - being with his family.
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