It's Dubai for PR guru after No 10

A key member of the team that propelled David Cameron to the British prime minister's job last year, Rishi Saha now takes over as the regional director for Hill & Knowlton.

Hill and Knowlton's new digital strategist, Rishi Saha, comes to Dubai from the UK where he controlled David Cameron's online campaigns. Lee Hoagland / The National

Rishi Saha has been described as "uber cool" by the media in his native UK. Steeped in the decidedly uncool field of British politics, this is a rare honour for the designer-suited executive.

But then, Mr Saha is no ordinary cyber guru.

He was the driving force behind the digital revolution that helped to propel David Cameron into 10 Downing Street last year while working for the Conservatives.

Apart from masterminding the online campaigning, he also worked on Mr Cameron's "Webcameron" video addresses.

"It was a very rewarding few years," says Mr Saha.

"I felt incredibly privileged to have been part of that team. But always you've got to ask yourself, what is the next big challenge?"

The next big challenge came from Dubai after Mr Saha turned his back on UK politics and switched his focus to public relations, taking over as regional director at the PR company Hill & Knowlton. His brief includes advising clients, including government agencies and corporations, on how to deal with the explosion in social media networking.

"There can be a little bit of an arms race in terms of how many followers, how many 'likes'.

"Obviously everyone likes to have big numbers.

"But also you've got to establish what you are using these platforms for. It's to work out: what do I want to tell the world?"

In an interview with The National, Mr Saha talked about his new role and the future of digital media in the Middle East.

q Everyone is saying that governments and corporations should embrace digital media. But why should they?

a Word of mouth has always been the most powerful form of communication. And this is just a new kind of word of mouth - it's just that it can now be amplified much more quickly to many more people. A lot of the stuff is just what communications people have been doing for decades and centuries. It's just packaged in a slightly different way.

What's your impression about the way Middle East governments are using digital media?

Governments are going to be playing catch-up, and I don't think that's unique to the Middle East. Governments, because of how they're operated and organised, tend to be a little bit slower. And they tend to see what's happening out there in the world, and then they've got to react and adapt.

What can they learn from the use of digital media during the Arab Spring?

The first thing is just to listen. There is a default mechanism, especially if you're used to more formal advertising, to make an advert and broadcast it to people. But I think the first thing to do is try to understand what people are already saying.

After the UK riots, there was a debate over whether the UK government should have powers to shut down BlackBerry Messenger and Facebook. This offered an obvious parallel to what happened in Egypt and Libya. What do you think of that?

I suspect these tools will not be shut down in the UK during periods of social unrest. A lot of these technologies are used very occasionally for malign purposes. But as we saw in what happened after the riots [in August], people were using these tools to organise clean-ups and to get together with their neighbours.

Tell us about your work building the Conservative Party's digital presence.

One of the areas in which we made big inroads was around email communications. By the end of the [UK] election, 500,000 people signed up to receive Conservative Party emails. And Webcameron, with the creation of video content, [gave] a much more human insight into the political leader.

What is the biggest challenge for the PR industry: controlling what is said on social media or in the tabloid press?

I don't really like this word control. Because if you are a brand or a government, or whoever you are, you cannot control people. People are at liberty to say what they want.

What is the right term then?

You've got to listen, you've got to understand, you've got to be open, and you've got to enter a dialogue with people. And I think those are the important principles. Because people feel much more empowered now.

You are now a resident of Dubai. Will you still be exercising your right to vote for the Conservatives back in the UK?

I shall keep my voting habits to myself. But I will register to vote. I take a fairly old-fashioned opinion, which is that many people fought for many decades and centuries for the right to vote. And it's one that I'm not going to be giving up.

You have been described as "publicity shy". Is that accurate, and if so is PR the right profession for you?

My objective is not to seek publicity for myself. The objective is to make [sure] the clients who we work with have their message told, and we're able to work with them in helping them to understand what their message is.

The Daily Mail newspaper said you were parachuted into a plum job at Downing Street on the public payroll. What is your reaction?

You've got to have a little bit of a thick skin if you're going to work in politics in any country. And so I would put that into that bracket. Politics is not a place for shrinking violets. And if you're not able to deal with people talking about you, or looking at you, or scrutinising your work, you're in the wrong game. It goes with the territory.