Omar has built a career around connecting strong strategies to organizations. He has consistently taken a view that there is no other field that is experiencing disruptions on an evolving basis like communications, and as such, communications professionals, if they wish to stay modern, must evolve their thinking, skills and abilities just as rapidly.

Just before Defy’s launch, Omar was brought on at General Motors to help redefine and manage the company’s corporate brand and ultimately, the corporate brand’s reputation. After working with an executive team to redraft the company’s “golden why” that re-explained why General Motors exists and how it serves a greater good, he put together a reputation plan that unified the entire corporate communications team in a manner that allowed for strategic storytelling efforts to remain in alignment with the newly constructed brand. Omar then worked to establish research and analytic inputs to help create an ongoing constant stream of feedback from the target audiences of the company.

Omar’s recent experience with GM followed years in the non-profit sector. He was hired at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as a communications analyst, where he helped manage the foundation’s health and racial equity portfolios. Omar led communications campaigns for nationwide “Good Food” movements occurring in urban areas, message development and implementation for national racial justice organizations, and later oversaw the foundation’s executive and internal communications.

Before his time in the world of philanthropy, Omar worked at a number of non-profits, helping to either launch them with effective strategies and a strong foundation of communications, or carry out their mission, which has included helping institutions of higher education and connecting Sudanese refugees with resources they need to foster leadership within their own communities.

Omar holds a Bachelor of Arts in communications from California State University Monterey Bay, a Master of Arts in higher education from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University.