Heba Korayem of HConsult Expands MENA Content Strategy With APHRODITE Initiative

DUBAI, June 09, 2026 — Heba Korayem, CEO of HConsult and one of the most consequential deal-makers in the Arabic content industry, is advancing a new strategic initiative under the banner of APHRODITE — a move that signals the next phase of her decade-long effort to connect MENA entertainment with the global content economy. The Heba Korayem APHRODITE initiative builds on HConsult's established infrastructure of market intelligence, co-production facilitation, and distribution consulting to deepen investment flows into and out of the Arab world's booming screen industry.

What You Need to Know

Heba Korayem has operated at the intersection of Arabic content, distribution, and international partnerships since co-founding the MENA region's first online content marketplace in 2017. That venture saw her close partnership deals with nine of the region's most powerful media entities at launch — including Abu Dhabi TV, Rotana, Al Hayat, LBC, and Abu Dhabi Media — and subsequently expand to international buyers across Japan, Canada, Europe, Latin America, the Philippines, and France. Her Dubai-based consultancy, HConsult, has since grown into a recognised authority on Arabic content market strategy, specialising in entertainment content partnerships, distribution, investment, and localisation across the Arab world.

Korayem is also the founder of the Co-Production Salon, an invite-only industry event that she has convened in partnership with CABSAT at the Dubai World Trade Centre. At its second edition, the Salon generated over 240 pre-arranged business meetings, with Korayem projecting approximately 40 major partnership deals to emerge from that single event — deals she described as substantially larger in scope than standard content acquisition announcements. The Salon has attracted participation from leading MENA media entities and international distributors, cementing its position as a structurally important venue for cross-border content investment.

The Big Picture

Korayem's influence extends across data as much as dealmaking. Since 2017, she has been the first industry analyst to systematically track Ramadan content market activity, building annual reports from EPG data across TV channels and OTT platform libraries. Those reports document acquisition trends, genre shifts, production volumes, platform buying behaviour, and the impact of external disruptions — from COVID-19 to geopolitical changes — on the MENA content cycle. Ramadan's TV advertising window alone is estimated to represent a $500 million market, making Korayem's data work commercially significant for every broadcaster, streamer, and production house operating in the region.

Her track record on deals is equally concrete. Korayem has signed over 200 distribution agreements for free-to-air channels on IPTV networks operated by regional telecoms including du, Omantel, and Vodafone. The licensed channels span state broadcasters — Dubai TV, Abu Dhabi Media, the Egyptian state broadcaster, Bahrain TV — as well as satellite-distributed private channels. In 2018, she organised the first Arabic pavilion at MIPCOM in Cannes in 50 years, drawing participation from Cedars Art, Eagle Films, Abu Dhabi Media, and the Arab Telemedia Group, among others. In her previous roles across industries, she consistently delivered annual revenue growth of more than 60%, predominantly through referral-driven and repeat client business.

APHRODITE: The Next Step

"APHRODITE represents a focused evolution of everything HConsult has built — the relationships, the data, the deal architecture," said Heba Korayem, CEO of HConsult. "The MENA content market is at an inflection point, and what the industry needs now is not more noise but structured, intelligence-led pathways that bring the right partners together at the right moment. That is exactly what this initiative is designed to deliver."

The APHRODITE initiative arrives at a moment of accelerating growth for the MENA media and entertainment sector. The market is projected to reach $48.43 billion by 2026 and nearly $76.79 billion by 2031, driven by digital infrastructure investment, OTT expansion, and a demographic profile that skews heavily toward mobile-first, content-hungry younger audiences. Parrot Analytics, the global entertainment analytics firm, formalised a collaborative partnership with HConsult's Co-Production Salon in 2024, bringing country-specific audience demand data into the Salon's deal facilitation framework — a pairing that reflects the data-driven direction Korayem has consistently championed.

Why It Matters

HConsult's positioning is specific and hard to replicate: deep bilateral relationships with Arabic-language media entities, fluency in both English and Arabic, and a body of proprietary market intelligence assembled over nearly a decade. Korayem holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Saskatchewan and a postgraduate diploma in Business Management and Finance from McGill University — a finance-first foundation that underpins her approach to content as an asset class rather than a purely creative enterprise. The APHRODITE initiative is expected to formalise new partnership structures and market entry pathways for both regional and international players seeking validated access to the Arabic content economy.

As the MENA entertainment landscape consolidates and global streamers accelerate their investment in Arabic originals, Heba Korayem and the APHRODITE initiative are positioned to serve as a critical conduit between market intelligence, co-production capital, and distribution infrastructure across one of the world's fastest-growing content markets.