Reem Heather Dabbas


As her name suggests, Reem Heather Dabbas has had her dose of cultural engagement: growing up in the United States, completing high school in Syria, attending university in Lebanon, and finally reaping the benefits of her experience to build a life here in the UAE.

Reem’s passion for the written word was evident early on her career, with over a decade of experience in Marketing and Communications, finally coming back full circle to her current role. As English Content Manager for Cicero & Bernay she is responsible for writing new content - a role that requires a wide degree of creativity and latitude, as well as ensuring all English content produced by the agency for a prominent panel of clients is nothing less than perfection.

While studying in Lebanon, Reem kick-started her career as a Senior Account Executive for Network Operations and Consultancy Center (NOCC) in 2003, managing the online portal thedaleel.com and planning online campaigns for Internet Regie. Reem then moved on to INFO Bank in 2005, an information database, where she managed a sales team and supervised advertising campaigns for key accounts. After relocating to Dubai in 2008, Reem joined a local landscaping company, TerraVerde, and was charged with Marketing & Communications. She was responsible for developing the brand and increasing market share by creating profiles, brochures, editorials, and marketing presentations. This propelled her further into copywriting as she utilised her talents while working extensively with various media to drive the company name forward.

Reem holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, which reflects her thirst for understanding the dynamics of human interaction as it effects communication. As a recent entrant into the “Mommy Club”, she values spending free time with her family; cherishing the lessons gained when we pay attention to the eccentricities of our youth.

Time really does fly by, doesn’t it? We hear this over and over again, but it never gets old? Why? Because it’s true.

Today I’m celebrating a milestone of my own – my baby turns two. Looking back, it’s been an amazing journey. He’s learnt and grown, and so have I.

From sitting up, to walking, to saying his first sentence – this is a journey unlike no other.

This is oddly similar to my own evolution at Cicero & Bernay. I came from a Marketing & Communications background, yes, but taking each step has been like learning how to walk, along with the joy and happiness that comes with each and every step a new-born takes.
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In the spirit of Mother’s Day, thought I’d give finishing this blog a try. Usually I don’t get stuck, I know what I want to write and I go about writing just that. But this is a sensitive subject. One that I’ve carefully approached many times.

I’m a career mom, obviously. I fight the urge to snooze every morning so that I can get in some ‘quality’ time with my son before I leave him for the rest of the day. This means letting him hold my phone while I quickly apply my makeup and try to get out the door. I’m usually always late; it’s not the traffic and it’s not the weather either, but it’s because he said ‘blue’ for the first time today, and I just had to hear it again.
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All things change. This always bugged me. Remember the swing set in elementary; remember driving our Chemistry teacher crazy for not following the procedure (and in turn blowing things up); remember cutting class in AUB? Now I’m a boring old mum, sitting at my 9-6, who thinks going to see Barney on the weekend is the most exciting thing since sliced bread. If anybody told me that two years ago, I would have laughed in their faces.

But change is good. It shows us how much we have grown, and how much more of our real selves we have become. While it’s nice to sit and reminisce about the days I was young and carefree, I wouldn’t go back if you paid me (plus, I’m secretly starting to sing along to Barney, too) Continue reading »

So generic, so often repeated, yet so something that we all want to hear. Why is it that we say we don’t care, but the minute someone else gets an overt display of affection our hearts begin to sink. Where’s my Romeo, where’s my flowers, where’s my message in a bottle??

That’s when I have to realise that love isn’t about gifts, cards, flowers, chocolate or candy. It’s about everyday actions. Your PR agency could completely ignore you, but on the day of your renewal make some grand gesture that overwhelms, and you find yourself saying, ‘Yes’ even though in the back of your head you know you really shouldn’t.
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They say digital media is exploding in the region. But at the brink of this revolution: do we really know what it means and how to use it?

With new information coming out every day, at a pace so quick that even an hour can change everything, are you getting the right information to make sure you stay relevant and on top of you game?
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I get there, and everything’s black.

What happened? Where did everybody go? They explain everything to us if you try to search for any information in English (guess it’s time to take up that second language), and it’s quite a worthy cause:

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge

For more than a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Continue reading »

I’ve seen some crazy examples of what people call a CV, and I have to say that I can’t believe how wrong some of them can be. This is your livelihood – actually it’s your life – all laid out on a few pages for people to see. This is how they will decide who you are and what you are capable of. If you can’t get even that right, how do you expect to be hired for the job?

Keep those CRAZY fonts to yourself

I personally am a visual person, so this irks me the most. My disposition even goes so far that when members of my team give me something to edit and it’s in Times New Roman, I have to change it to Calibri before I can even attempt to do anything with it. I’ve even tried to get them to change the font of our blog to something I like more (maybe they’ll cater to my OCD whims for the launch of our new website and blog – coming soon!), so when I get those crazy or hard to read fonts I just go mad.
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Back from 10 days off, doing nothing but sleeping in and eating when I please. But now that I’m back, I’m suffering from more than just jet lag; I’m suffering from lazy-lag. I love my work (you’d know that if you read my post about it) but it’s so hard to get back into the swing of things.

So if you don’t want to get fired for getting a tan, here are some tips that helped me get my groove back.
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Taking time out for the little people, isn’t it great? I know I feel good when I give my son five minutes of attention so that he can ramble on about his day (it’s still a foreign language to me since he still can’t talk), and as busy as I might be it’s important. It shows I care, it gives him time to vent and it helps us to come up with better solutions to problems that I may not have been able to think of all on my own. Case in point: we’ve implemented later bedtimes so that he could spend more time with daddy – his suggestion, not mine. Low and behold, we tried it and it works. Now he goes to bed without a fuss (almost).

Without the help of the little people that work for you, how do you know if you’re doing it right? They’re the ones getting down and dirty with your operations, and they’re the ones who really know what it takes to make your business run. If you don’t ask junior, you might be missing an opportunity to make things a whole lot better. Continue reading »

Love that song, don’t you? I StumbleUponed this article about 10 ways to make you happy, and I realised that just reading the title and seeing the picture actually did.

I think we should try to apply some of these principles to our daily miserable work lives (just kidding), and here are a few:

Know Yourself
This took me quite a while. I grew up in the States, went to high school in Syria and then did university in Lebanon. Along the way I found myself quite confused, trying to be so many different people to so many different people. What did I do? Try to be what others wanted me to be instead of myself. That even translated into my career. Continue reading »

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