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Khouri supports improving the rate at which women are employed within the industry and the Middle East. The rate at which women are employed for top positions also varies by country within the region. It is his goal to have an equal number of women and men in senior positions in his organization by 2020.

In 2019, he was promoted to Chairman of the Group.

Khouri is a regular commentator on industry trends and one of the leading media executives in the Middle East. In a 2019 interview, he warned the Middle Eastern marketing industry about the growing share of advertising investments going to global digital platforms and its impact on the local media ecosystem. The group also shares and promotes its intellectual property and thought leadership with its stakeholders, notably by staging events like OMD Predicts and PHD BrainScape and publishing white papers.

In 2017, he was named to the board of the UAE affiliate of Endeavor, the global non-profit organization that supports high-impact entrepreneurs.

In 2016, OMG opened a Dubai operation for the holding's latest agency brand, Hearts & Science, with the Egyptian food company Americana as its first client. In 2018, the group had grown to 24 offices in 16 countries, with some 700 staff. It has actively been investing in data analytics, including technology, software and infrastructure, and data acquisition; content; and programmatic trading. Khouri explained in an interview how the media agency role had moved from buying media cheaply to generating tangible business performance.

Khouri is an art patron and collector. His international collection includes contemporary paintings, sculptures and design objects. Some of the works from his collection are displayed at Omnicom Media Group MENA headquarters in Dubai. He supports the Association for the Promotion and Exhibition of the Arts in Lebanon (APEAL), a non-profit organisation dedicated to showcasing and encouraging Lebanese artists. Khouri is a member of the Tate Middle East North Africa Acquisitions Committee and the MoMA Director's Council, as well as an Art Dubai patron. In 2016, he started working towards establishing a private art foundation, to support emerging artists and the art ecosystem in the region and globally.

Omnicom developed its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program—based upon community, environmental, and corporate behaviour objectives—and supports several arts and educational institutions. The company received the Best First Time Sustainability Report award for its inaugural Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) report at the recently held at the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards in 2016. Khouri became a board member of Injaz-UAE, an organisation dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy, and START, a non-profit organisation established by Art Dubai and the Al Madad Foundation. He has also served as a board member of the United Arab Emirates chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA).

The company had eight offices in six countries; and employed 450 people by 2012. By the following year, it had launched Resolution, which specializes in social and mobile advertising and programmatic buying, which are forms of performance marketing. It uses OMD Predicts and PHD BrainScape to share intellectual property. Omnicom grew more than 30% in 2013 to $2.5 billion.

In 2012 and 2013, Omnicom Media Group MENA was named as one of the best places to work, according to the annual list issued by the Great Place to Work institute (GPTW) in the United Arab Emirates. The company maintained its ranking as the third best place to work from 2014 to 2016. In 2017, the company progressed further to reach the second place in the ranking. Khouri credits the organization's success to their "team's happiness at work."

He was named as one of the most admired CEO's in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) by CEO Middle East magazine in 2009. In 2011, he ranked 2nd in the 50 most powerful people in media by Communicate magazine. Khouri ranked 31st in the 500 most powerful Arabs in 2011 and was 23rd in the list by Arabian Business of 2013. Later in the year, Khouri also received the award for ‘Media and Marketing CEO of the Year’ at the Gulf Business Industry Awards. LinkedIn included Elie Khouri in its UAE 2016 Power Profiles list. In recognition for the company's consistent performance in the UAE ranking, the Great Place to Work Institute gave Elie Khouri its inaugural Leader of the Year Award in 2017.

He was awarded Media CEO of the year by CEO Middle East magazine in 2008. He was ranked 78th in Top 100 Global Meets Local by Forbes in 2013. Two years later, Forbes ranked him 25th in the same Top 100 list. In 2016, he was 52nd on the list and 40th in 2019.

In 2007, Khouri was made regional managing director of Omnicom Media Group and was subsequently appointed as CEO in 2010.

Starcom was the leading media agency in the Middle East until 2005, when OMD took the lead. The global roll-out of Omnicom Media Group's other media brand, PHD, by early 2006, saw the addition of an office in Dubai to the existing ones in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The Omnicom Media Group MENA (Middle East and North Africa), a regional holding company, was established. It reports to the Omnicom Media Group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which is based in London. In 2006, Khouri moved from his regional managing director role at OMD to assume the leadership of the Omnicom Media Group MENA.

Khouri returned to Dubai in 2001 and later established OMD (Optimum Media Direction), by unbundling Omnicom's media departments within its full-service agencies. The company develops advertising campaigns for its clients. Arabian Business states that "Khouri ditched a glamorous job in the advertising industry to set up the media agency OMD." This occurred when media was a minor consideration in communication planning. With the wider use of technology, media became an important element in planning advertising campaigns.

In 1992, Khouri moved to Dubai, where he worked at Impact BBDO in a senior role. He returned to Beirut in 1996 and for the next four years served as the associate managing partner of Impact BBDO.

He worked within the advertising industry at Omnicom Group's agency BBDO after he received his MBA in 1988. In 2002, he went from the creative to the media side of Omnicom Group to launch OMD, a media communications group. It develops marketing campaigns using digital, mobile, and television advertising and, more recently, employing performance marketing. Omnicom has been ranked one of the best places to work in the United Arab Emirates for several years.

He attended the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he received a BBA in 1986 and an MBA in business and finance in 1988. On his way to classes at AUB, he was often in danger due to snipers in the area and he once escaped a kidnapping attempt. While attending the university, Khouri worked at a financial trading company, which dealt with trading currencies, securities and bonds.

After graduation, Khouri went to Cyprus to work for Lance de Masi at BBDO, an advertising agency that is part of the Omnicom Group. He pursued this job because he found it more interesting than finance, and the move would take him away from the civil war. Also, the banking industry had become unstable due to the global financial crisis of the late 1980s. He travelled frequently for TV commercial shoots to New York, Los Angeles and London for clients like Yves Saint Laurent and Pepsi.

Elie Khouri (born May 8, 1964) is a Lebanese-French marketing and communications executive in Dubai. He is the Chairman of Omnicom Media Group MENA, the media services division of the Omnicom Group.

Born on May 8, 1964, Khouri lived on the east side of Beirut, where his father worked as a chef. The Lebanese Civil War broke out when he was 11-years-old, but he stayed in Beirut because his family did not have the money to relocate. From a young age, Khouri sold firecrackers, canned food, drinks, and clothing to make pocket money. During the raids, there was a food shortage, so he started to sell tuna and beef in his neighborhood. With the proceeds, he bought clothes, which he later sold at a profit.