Tell us about a time in your professional experience where you were frustrated

I guess none of you would be surprised if I told you working in a conflict zone was challenging; frustration stems from my work on a daily basis. For my former colleagues at JWT, and those of you who understand the logistics of the advertising/marketing business, I'm going to take a couple of minutes to explain what I'm up against.

The country is slowly developing, so we can actually produce posters, banners, billboards and other out-of-home creative in Afghanistan. We can also purchase billboard space in prime locations all over the country... but we can't confirm that our creative went up in regions outside of the capital. (I'm definitely not taking a trip into Kandahar to check if my ads look nice.) Furthermore, even if they do put up my billboard today, they may replace it with a competitor's billboard next week. Contract? What contract? Oh yea, and there are no rules on real estate, so if someone decides to build another billboard directly in front of the one with Roshan advertising, I can't do anything to stop it. This clearly isn't ideal, but it's better than when they start tearing down our billboards to fortify their roofs when it starts raining or to use them for firewood in the winter.

There is no such thing as GRPs in Afghanistan. The television showed up in households less than five years ago, and there are under ten TV channels in the country. Our media and research agencies actually went out and built a GRP tool specifically for us... but who's to say it's accurate? It's the only tool of it's kind!

The list above is minor compared to issues with securing talent. There is nothing more difficult than putting a woman in advertising. Even if she agrees to the photo shoot/TV commercial, a woman needs her husband's and/or father's signature in addition to her own on the contract. It's also not unheard of for women to call up in tears saying that her father has threatened to kill her if we don't take down the billboard featuring her face. Have a dead woman on our conscience or keep our ads up? It's a clear choice, but it's definitely not a cost effective way to run a business.

Roshan is a telecommunications company that has nation-wide coverage, which means my customers are everywhere. Roshan is also committed to the Afghan people, with the slogan, "Nazdik Shodan" or "bringing people together." One of the basic challenges presented to Joel and I when we started was to bring more humanity to the brand. It was a simple proposition: represent the Afghan people in our advertising. In a country like Afghanistan, this means representing people from different ethnic and tribal backgrounds,who speak different languages and dialects, engage in different cultural nuances and relate to specific regional landscapes. Some of these people have never left their village.

Unfortunately for us, the agency sitting in Beirut is forced to choose from an online library of photos (i.e. Getty) and 99% of the people in the library are not Afghan and do not look Afghan. Clearly, this is big problem if I'm looking to show the full variety of Afghans in my ads.

A good leader will say there is a solution to every problem. To find solutions in Afghanistan, we are often forced to think outside the box a little. We found a very talented photographer (war photographer by profession) to travel around the country for three months shooting locals in various scenarios, essentially creating our own Photo Library that we can use for the next 3-5 years. (Click here to check out Jason Howe's site - his shots are awesome.) We are having the Roshan IT department actually build software that will enable us to track the quality and visibility of our out of home advertisements (no, this does not exist yet, they can't even tell me the number of cars that drive by a major intersection everyday.)

I have no good solution to the women's issue in Afghanistan, but seriously, find me someone who does. In the meantime, I will continue to brainstorm solutions to the problems I encounter every day and keep my frustration level to a minimum. If I help evolve this brand even slightly in the year that I'm here, I will have succeeded at my goal.