Nelia Smith - Host City speaker

Nelia Smith

Position: Head of Sponsorship, Oman Sail

Nelia has ten years’ experience in sports marketing and brand management with a track record of developing and implementing activation programmes. From 2009 until 2017, she was involved in rights delivery and brand PR activities with the South African Rugby Union teams, aligning squads with sponsors for advertising campaigns, events and social issues. She has also worked on collaborations with the women’s national Hockey team, sports personalities and some of the world’s highest-selling musical acts, as well as charity and CSR campaigns.

Nelia joined Oman Sail in 2017 as Head of Client Services before moving to her current role a year later. In each position she has overseen an increase in external sponsorship to support the growing number of prestigious events organised and managed by Oman Sail which has heightened awareness of the Sultanate of Oman as an adventure tourism destination and increased the contribution of tourism to the national GDP.