Joseph Assaf

Joseph Assaf uttered his first words in Arabic, undertook his schooling in French, migrated to an English speaking country, married an Italian, and is now in the business of communicating to a multicultural audience.

In 1977 Joseph established Ethnic Communications, the worlds first integrated multilingual, and multicultural communication agency.

In 1981 Joseph launched Multicultural Marketing News, a specialist magazine and was the only one of its type.

In 1985 he launched his first theory on the Economic Dimension of Multiculturalism and the benefits of Productive Cultural Diversity.

In 1988 he founded, and continues to direct the Ethnic Business Awards which is one of the longest running business awards in Australia, and the longest running business awards on television.

Joseph has served as a member of many councils, boards and committees, including:

• The National Multicultural Advisory Council
• The Australia Foundation for Culture and the Humanities
• The Australian Constitutional Centenary Foundation
• The Council for Australian Arab Relations
• Department of Immigration External Reference Groups regarding illegal workers and the review of the Independent and Skilled migration categories
• Advisor to many public and private, national and international, institutions on multicultural communication.

In 1995, The Australian described Joseph Assaf as a man who:

“has made political leaders, corporate Australia and the international community aware of the value of their multicultural populations. Through his work he has enabled people to understand and appreciate the importance of encouraging and supporting people’s individual ethnicity.

In his own way this man has single handedly given people of an ethnic background a tremendous market value. He is acknowledged as the guru and pioneer of multicultural marketing for his innovative and visionary work.”

In 2003 Joseph established Multicall, a multilingual contact centre which provides a full range of marketing communication and customer management services for clients wishing to reach communities who speak languages other than English at home.

Joseph’s life experience has led him to write In someone else’s shoes, and has brought the idea of communicating to a multicultural audience into a reality for many corporate, political and community leaders, and now to the broader community.