Story
Who is Sultan Hakeem
Eighteen years, six sectors, and one instinct that was there long before there was a job attached to it.
It started before it was a job
I was the one organising things. Birthdays, small gatherings, whatever was happening. Nobody asked me to. I just wanted the thing to work. That instinct was there long before I knew there was a profession attached to it.
At university I took a job at a small marketing firm, and then I found myself at Al Reem Circuit as a promoter. Racing, Red Bull, consumers, entertainment. My job was to get people engaged and keep the event moving. It was noisy, physical work and I loved it.
The event that made me, and nearly didn't
The Ferrari event at the circuit is the one I point to. It gave me my start properly, and I got a lot of the planning wrong. Not catastrophically, but wrong enough that I still remember which parts. That failure shaped more of how I work now than any success did. I stopped assuming things would hold and started checking.
Somewhere in that period I was noticed. I was recruited from the promoter side into a large international corporation, and the results started coming one after another. That was the turn. Not a decision I made, a door someone else opened because of how I had been working.
Six years learning it properly
I chose to go agency side, and I chose it deliberately. I wanted to understand marketing and events from the inside rather than from one company's view of them. Agency work is heavy. Many clients, many sectors, no two weeks the same.
My bread and butter came from the dirty work. On site and behind the desk. Load-in at two in the morning, the vendor who has not arrived, the run sheet that has to change while the room is filling. You cannot learn that from a plan.
I would tell anyone starting out, or anyone who wants to build a business, to spend time in an agency. But for a career, corporate gives you a platform to stand out and to progress. So I moved.
Banking, energy, logistics
Riyad Bank, then ACWA Power, then SAL. On paper those are three different industries. In practice they were three different lessons.
The decision to move each time was hard, and I still hold a place for every brand I have worked for. What connects them is the Kingdom's ambition, and my wish to contribute to it in whatever way I can.
Between them they taught me patience, protocol at a standard I had not encountered before, and crisis management like nothing else. Working with the government sector is nerve-wracking and it is rewarding, and it demands you stay on your toes. Resilience and passion together produce a standard this work now requires.
What actually goes wrong
Something stops working. A vendor forgets a piece of the puzzle. It is always that, and it is always sudden.
That is where risk and crisis management earn their place. Years of the same category of failure teach you to see it coming, and either prevent it or shrink it. Not eliminate it. Nobody is perfect, and any planner who tells you otherwise has not run enough events.
Two things I believe
That others often do not
Protocol is an art form of mutual respect.
Understanding your guest matters more than meeting a standard you set for yourself. A perfectly dressed table means nothing if you have not understood who is sitting at it.
Presence is not the same as being noticed.
Brand presence is not effective simply because it exists. Being in the right place matters more than being in many places. Top of mind beats a scattering of placements that people see and forget by the afternoon.
What I am building
A future I can be remembered by. Not only by my family, but by the people I have worked alongside.
I want to be useful to whoever needs guidance, and I would like to be an inspiration to some of them. And if my children look up to me one day, I would rather they see a success story than an events leader.