Bio

Richard is CEO and Founder of Augustus Media, an award winning modern media company in the UAE and KSA, publishers of the Lovin’ local news and lifestyle brand in 20 cities, and broadcasters of Smashi TV streaming service. He has worked in the media advertising space since 2006 at agencies in Ireland, England and the UAE.

He successfully built a regional Social Media department at Mindshare MENA before becoming Managing Director of a creative technology start up.

In 2015 he launched Augustus, a ‘new media’ company, which was recognised as Best SME Company in the 2018 MENA EFFIE Awards. In 2019, they added ODEUM, a content studio. The company has grown to $11m in revenue in 2023 and 80 employees in Dubai, Riyadh and Cairo.

In addition to running Augustus Media, he also manages a portfolio of media, tech and content investments under Fitzy Fund. Richard is fascinated about changing media consumption habits, and passionate about creating effective brand communications through native advertising.