5 Minutes with… Ash Chagla

As chief creative officer and founding partner of independent agency Science & Sunshine, Ash Chagla wants to “set the tone, not chase it.” She’s driven by the desire to keep the joy in creativity, protecting the right to say ‘no’ to what doesn’t excite her, and cherishing long-form stories while others shave down their content into smaller and smaller shards.

It’s a point of view that Ash has refined across more than two decades in the industry. She began as a copywriter at the likes of Lowe, JWT, and Y&R Dubai, the latter of which she helped become the most awarded Middle East agency in Cannes Lions history in 2013 and Dubai Lynx Agency of the Year for three consecutive years. There, she stepped up to the role of joint ECD and won her first D&AD Yellow Pencil as well as three Grand Prix at Dubai Lynx. Fatefully, it’s where she also met Nadine Ghossoub, then Y&R Dubai’s managing director, with whom she would take the leap to found Science & Sunshine in 2016.

LBB’s Zara Naseer sat down with Ash to discover why your voice evades your grasp just as soon as you find it, why the unlikely duo of John Hegarty and Chris Martin are her heroes, and what frustrates and exhilarates her about the industry today.

LBB> How did your creativity manifest itself when you were growing up? What were your favourite outlets for that energy?

Ash> I was terrible at drawing, so I had to find other ways to be creative. Lego was my medium of choice – I’d throw all the instructions out and freestyle entire cities out of mismatched bricks.

I also did gymnastics for years and read an unhealthy amount of Enid Blyton, which means I was either upside down or plotting imaginary adventures.

Childhood hobbies: Lego, gymnastics, making stuff up. Otherwise known as my current job description.

LBB> How did you get into advertising? Was it a purposeful decision or more of an accident?

Ash> Technically, my mum decided. She thought I’d be good at it, so I studied media and communication at uni – lots of film theory, lots of semiotics, and not nearly enough job prospects.

At the time, I was living in New Zealand, and all the best ads on TV were from Saatchi & Saatchi. Smart, funny, memorable – I was hooked.

One day, after failing to find parking on campus, I ended up randomly parked under the Saatchi building. I looked up at the sign and thought, ‘yeah, I’ll work there someday’.

And I did. Not Saatchi & Saatchi – M&C Saatchi. But close enough.

LBB> What’s the best advice you’ve ever received by someone in the industry? Why does it stand out to you?

Ash> You can study every great ad, memorise ‘The Copy Book’, copy the cadence of every famous line – but eventually, you have to find your own voice.

Which sounds simple until you try it.

And just when you finally figure it out… your voice evolves, and you’re back at square one with a blinking cursor and mild identity crisis.

LBB> Who are your creative heroes and why?

Ash> In advertising, it’s John Hegarty. The thinking, the work, the fact that half the industry is still quoting him in keynotes.

Once upon a Cannes, he was at the next table at breakfast at the Carlton. Instead of saying “Hi John, really big fan of your work,” I just sat there – silently fangirling over my latte. Didn’t say a word. Just absorbed the genius through osmosis.

Outside of advertising, Chris Martin. And yes, I’m fully aware that’s not a ‘cool’ answer. But if you actually listen to the lyrics – really listen – the storytelling is magic. There’s honesty, scale, and simplicity all in the same breath.

There’s a reason Coldplay still fills stadiums singing about stars and yellow things.

LBB> You established Science & Sunshine alongside CEO Nadine Ghossoub in 2016 – as two women in heavily male-dominated roles, what was that experience like?

Ash> We didn’t set out to be ‘women in male-dominated roles’. We just wanted to build the kind of agency we’d actually want to work at.

We weren’t trying to be the biggest. We weren’t chasing awards or scale or headlines. We just wanted the freedom to say no – to clients that didn’t align, to work that didn’t excite us, to environments that drained the joy out of creativity.

It felt like a start-up with nothing to lose, powered by experience and the urge to make the kind of work that made *us* happy first.

Nine years later, we’re still here – still independent, still doing it our way. Even if ‘our way’ now involves explaining TikTok trends we secretly can’t stand.

LBB> As CCO, how do you stay inspired? What’s your solution to creative block?

Ash> I watch a lot of documentaries. As the industry keeps shrinking things down to three-second hooks, I go the other way. Long-form stories, slower thinking, bigger ideas – it helps reset my perspective.I started cycling – which is amazing in winter, and a terrible life decision in Dubai summer.

And honestly, I listen to my team. They’re full of strange, brilliant, unexpected takes that shift how I see things

Inspiration isn’t something I chase. It usually sneaks up when I’m not looking – preferably somewhere with a beach and zero client emails.

LBB> What’s the most creatively interesting project you’ve worked on?

Ash> A recent project I really enjoyed was the Tarab campaign for Spotify.

We had to help Spotify connect with the Saudi audience, so we tapped into something deeply rooted in Khaleeji music culture: Tarab.

It’s an emotional state you reach through music. Powerful, poetic, and nearly impossible to explain – it doesn’t even translate into English. Which made it the perfect brief: simple, cultural, and slightly brain-melting.

We built a campaign around its many linguistic derivations. One word. Many Tarab states. And endless excuses to vanish down a Khaleeji music rabbit hole in the name of research.

The work was a joy to make – full of singing, dancing, and unapologetic desk shimmying.

LBB> How would you characterise creativity in the Middle East? What makes it unique from other regions?

Ash> The honest answer? You can’t characterise it – because ‘the Middle East’ isn’t one creative scene. It’s dozens.

Each country has its own pulse, humour, tone, and pace. What works in Riyadh would land completely differently in Beirut, or Cairo, or Dubai.

That’s what makes it exciting – and frustrating. You can’t play it safe. You can’t rely on formulas. You have to listen harder, decode faster, and earn your place. Which, to be fair, is what makes the work better.

LBB> What trends in the industry do you find yourself ranting about the most and why?

Ash> The cult of short-form everything. I get it – attention spans are short, TikTok is king, no one reads past the first line. But not every idea should be squeezed into six seconds and a trending audio.

Some stories need space. Some brands do too.

And then there’s the pitch process. The unpaid marathons. The twenty agencies all briefed on the same day. The decks that take weeks – followed by silence. No feedback, no thank you, just ghosted.It’s wild how much brilliance gets wasted before the brief even lands.

Sometimes I think the biggest trend we need is just… respect.

LBB> What are your most exciting plans for the future of Science & Sunshine?

Ash> We didn’t build Science & Sunshine to play it safe – and we’re not about to start now. I want us to keep evolving – creatively, culturally, and technologically.

I’m fascinated by AI, not in the ‘robots will take our jobs’ way, but in the ‘how can we use this to make ideas faster, funnier, and less expected’ way.

I want us to stay relevant. I want us to set the tone, not chase it. And I want us to keep pushing what social can do for our clients – louder when it matters, sharper when it counts, never boring.