Brent Balloch, President
Brent is an expert in cross-cultural communications, and a lawyer by profession. He has over 20 years of experience working in strategic communications and corporate and reputation/crises management across Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Brent started his career working in public education campaigns in post-conflict areas for several NGOs.
His involvement in public education campaigns inspired him to establish Balloch & Roe, the first print, media and advertising company in Baghdad immediately after the fall of the previous regime. Brent worked closely with the Coalition Provisional Authority, the UN, the US military, the Iraqi Electoral Commission, and the Iraqi Governing Council to strategically develop, run and manage many of the Coalition's media communication campaigns in Iraq.
In 2004, Brent cofounded Babylon. Since then, Brent has headed up the company's business development and networking (including developing relationships with advertising, public relations and digital communications firms, think tanks, governments and international organizations), overall project strategy, and staffing and client advisory work.
Brent advises a broad range of clients across governments, FMCG, travel and tourism, industrial, retail, media and property sectors on high-profile and often complex situations. At Babylon, he manages a multi-disciplinary, culturally diverse team to create long-term strategies and short-term tactical responses to reputational threats. Brent has specialties in:
- Advising government and corporate clients to develop and implement strategies to counter malign foreign influence and disinformation in the public and corporate spheres.
- Advising governments and international organizations on extremism and developing and implementing strategies to counter extremist groups.
- Supporting country-stabilization, democratization and institution-building.
- Advising major international corporations on crisis management and strategic communications.
Brent has deep respect for measurable, science-based — including data and social science — multi-disciplinary approaches, which he constantly implements in his work to enable his clients to successfully adapt to a fast-moving and sometimes hostile communications environment. Brent has an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington.
Hala Nimri, Chief Executive Officer
Hala brings over 25 years of international experience in project management and strategic planning to Babylon Communications. She has refined skills in cross-cultural communications and customer loyalty programs, and has held senior positions in several corporations in the tourism, finance, loyalty, and marketing industries in France, Canada, the UAE, and Jordan.
In 2004, Hala co-founded Babylon and since then held the position of Chief Executive Officer. She has been instrumental in building the company into the globally influential firm it is today. Supported by industry experts, Hala oversees the company's operations, finance, human resources, business alliances, research, and strategic communications efforts.
Hala strongly believes in the importance of mentoring talented professional women and has helped create the diversity that makes Babylon a stronger organization. During her time with Babylon, Hala has successfully led large-scale projects including:
- Several strategic communications efforts in Iraq aimed at encouraging Iraqi citizens to take ownership and leadership of reconstruction efforts.
- Development of an animated television series in Sanaa, Yemen, aimed at promoting tolerance and girls' education, and at preventing early marriage.
- Communications campaigns aimed at countering malign foreign influence in Europe and Salafi radicalization efforts in Pan Arab countries, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
- Several research projects focusing on various topics, including malign foreign influence, cyber security, piracy, defense technology and robotics, military disaster response, Korean peninsula geopolitical tensions, Asia pacific regional cooperation, and violent extremist organizations' use of social media.
- Support for Babylon's research division's success with various studies for major governmental and commercial organizations such as the US Pacific, Central, European, and Africa Commands, Abu Dhabi Tourism, and McDonalds.
Laura Wesley Al-Wir, General Counsel
Laura is a New-York-qualified attorney with over 20 years of experience working in the international legal arena in the United States, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. She has extensive experience working with governments, private companies and non-governmental organizations.
Focusing mainly on contracting and compliance, Laura has worked on a variety of complex cross border projects in the areas of finance, mergers and acquisitions and regulatory work. Laura is well versed in the complexities of both public and private sector contracts, including drafting and negotiating key legal documents and ensuring compliance.
In addition to her legal work, Laura has extensive experience in designing and developing projects, monitoring and evaluation and project management. She has been based in the Middle East for the last 13 years. Projects that Laura has worked on include:
- Handling the negotiations on three multi-million-dollar communications projects, including drafting and negotiating contracts and agreements governed by Jordanian law, Lebanese law, UAE law, New Zealand law, New York law and US Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR).
- Developing, securing and implementing a multi-year monitoring and evaluation project for USAID in Jordan.
- Conducting a Monitoring and Evaluation, and Reporting Needs Assessment for IOM's Iraq Mission, including assessing IOM-Iraq's current internal and external monitoring and evaluation and reporting systems.
- Representing a US contractor in the financing of an Egyptian oil refinery, including negotiating the terms of loan agreement and the supporting documents with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and local Egyptian counsel.
- Drafting financing and corporate governance documents, conducting legal due diligence, and negotiating with banks, governments and power companies on power projects in Peru, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.
Laura has a Bachelor of Science, Foreign Service, from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia. She also was a Peace Corps Volunteer, working in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Djenan Khayatt, Chief Operating Officer
Djenan has over 25 years of experience working in emerging markets; particularly in the MENA Region. Djenan has worked with Babylon for over a decade and is currently responsible for overseeing the company's day-to-day operational activities, including financial management and budgeting, program support, HR policies and procedures, and legal.
Prior to coming to Jordan, Djenan held positions in both private companies and multilateral development organizations; including Director of Investments for the IDB Infrastructure Fund in Bahrain and staff positions with the World Bank and IFC.
Djenan has extensive financial sector experience focusing on the analysis of new transactions/projects, assessment of risk and profitability, and financial modeling for decision-making support.
She has over 15 years of experience with new business startups, long-term strategic planning, strategy execution, project management, budgeting and negotiations.
Djenan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University.