Hisham El-Murad
Managing Partner
Hisham’s interest in brands was piqued at a young age, stumbling across his father’s many books on branding, marketing strategy and consumer behaviour that were always lying around the family home in London. As soon as he was old enough, he got a job at one of the biggest clothing brands at that time – The Gap. He learned the ins-and-outs of a very successful fashion brand, product management, seasonality, visual and product merchandising, fabrication of garments, and of course branding, through exposure to key branding messages, in visual form and written, for multiple purposes and formats. He then joined Zara, as part of the retail team behind the launch of 3 of the stores in Central London (Regents Street, Oxford Street and High Street Kensington), just as the young Spanish brand was beginning its aggressive launch in the UK.
This early exposure to retail and mega brands drove Hisham to Westminster Business School, where he undertook the first BA Hons Fashion Management program of its kind in Europe. During his bachelors, Hisham was one of two candidates to earn a paid placement year at Arcadia Group, as a Merchandiser on the Topman brand overseeing over 180 UK stores. He also later secured a role at Harvey Nichols Head Office as a Merchandiser on International Brands, held an internship at Debenhams on the E-commerce team, conducted management case studies on Zegna, Zara and others, before completing a major project on retail space planning, with a critical review of Ikea.
With this experience and education under his belt, Hisham was able to secure a senior role at a prestigious British heritage brand, Aquascutum, prior to graduating in 2006; his last day of University was on a Friday, and he started that Monday, overseeing Menswear from a merchandise planning and product assortment perspective. Two years later he would move on to the niche luxury maison Bamford & Sons, where he oversaw merchandise planning across mens and womens ready-to-wear and accessories. Here he was also a systems “super-user” and represented the commercial teams on a committee that led the transition to a whole new Oracle-based enterprise management system.
In 2009, Hisham accepted a role in the Middle East and relocated to Kuwait, to shape and build a buying and merchandising function for a local franchise operator and establish best practice processes. The brands under his remit included Maxmara Group brands, Kenzo, Jimmy Choo, Donna Karan, DKNY and many more. Here he spent the next seven years, growing responsibility across the group, finally reaching Director of Regional Fashion and Business Development and overseeing brand activities in 8 Middle East territories. In his time Hisham structured teams and established best practice across buying, merchandising and marketing, signed multiple new brands to the group, and opened many stores in different countries.
In 2016 Hisham accepted a role directing the leasing strategy and client relationships of a landmark commercial mixed-use development in Kuwait, where retail partner relationships included Hermes, Kering Group (Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta), and commercial clients included HSBC, KPMG, and many more of this caliber.
And in 2018, zerad was born…