Amanda Turnbull

Amanda Turnbull is an award-winning entrepreneurial leader with a record of transformational brand and team management in emerging and high-growth markets. She has founded and now runs her own consultancy business across the media, culture and entertainment landscape in the Middle East and Africa, with a specific focus on value creation for her clients.

Between 2014-2020, Amanda oversaw Discovery Inc’s business in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. She launched seven new channel brands, while simultaneously focusing on digital innovation – launching the world’s first Arabic language instructional cooking app and building a digital and social media footprint reaching 12 million people daily. Under her leadership Discovery’s Middle East and Africa operations doubled top-line revenue in six years. Amanda was recognized as MENA Broadcast Executive of the Year in 2019.

With 30 years’ experience in the media industry – specializing in sales, marketing and brand development – Amanda first joined Discovery in 2007 as Sales Director for the Emerging Markets, launching Discovery’s advertising business in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and South Africa. Between 1993 and 2007 Amanda lived and worked in Asia Pacific. She launched eight local editions of ELLE and ELLE Decoration for Hachette Filipacchi Medias (now Hearst), was Managing Director for Hachette’s Hong Kong operations with a team of 90 and Marketing and Communications Director at the English language newspaper of record, The South China Morning Post, during Hong Kong’s sensitive post-handover period.

Amanda holds an MA in History from Cambridge University, an MBA from Hult International Business School. She sits on the Executive Board of The Central European University’s MBA program and is a Founding Committee Member for the TECOM Media Incubator Programme.