Haifa Bay Hires Frank Melloul to Sell IMEC

Part of: Israel's Ports and Logistics — the complete map

By The Olam Editorial Team

The Haifa Bay Authorities appointed Frank Melloul as Ambassador on June 1, 2026, naming a multilingual French-Israeli media and government operator to lead the cluster's international pitch for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). The cluster brings together 18 local authorities representing approximately 840,000 residents and anchors a 52-authority Arab-Jewish municipal coalition.

The Haifa Bay Authorities appointed Frank Melloul as Ambassador on June 1, 2026.

The appointment is larger than a personnel move. It is a recognition that the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is becoming a competition not only for infrastructure investment, but for narrative dominance. Regions that want to sit at the center of the corridor must make their case internationally.

Haifa Bay has decided it needs a dedicated operator to do exactly that.

Key Facts

Frank Melloul was appointed Ambassador of the Haifa Bay Authorities on June 1, 2026.
The Haifa Bay Authorities were created in 2019 and bring together 18 local authorities representing approximately 840,000 residents.
The cluster anchors a wider 52-authority Arab-Jewish coalition in cooperation with the Galilee and Valleys Cluster and the Kinneret and Valleys Cluster.
Melloul was previously CEO of i24NEWS; earlier roles include Deputy Spokesperson at France’s Quai d’Orsay and Communications Advisor to the French Prime Minister.
The Haifa Bay Authorities operate the IMEC Information and Research Center and the international “Next Bay” conference.
IMEC is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, announced at the G20 in September 2023 to link India, the Gulf, Israel, and Europe.

The Appointment

The Haifa Bay Authorities, the regional cluster that coordinates infrastructure, transportation, energy, and economic development across 18 northern Israeli municipalities, named Frank Melloul as Ambassador of the Cluster on June 1, 2026. Aharon Azulay, the cluster’s CEO, framed the role as a geoeconomic priority — positioning the Haifa Bay Authorities at the heart of the region’s emerging dynamics.

The mandate is to define and lead the cluster’s international public diplomacy and outreach. In practical terms, that means making the case — to foreign governments, investors, multinationals, and the media — that the Haifa Bay region is a strategic node on IMEC and not an afterthought.

The news was first carried by i24NEWS, where Melloul served as CEO until earlier this year, and by French-language regional media. As of publication, the appointment has not been picked up by major English-language business press.

The Cluster, Explained

The Haifa Bay Authorities — formally a “regional cluster” under Israeli municipal law — was established in 2019 as a coordinating platform between 18 local authorities surrounding Haifa Bay. The cluster acts on infrastructure planning, transportation, economic development, energy, sustainability, and social services. The combined population it serves is approximately 840,000.

More significant for the international audience: the cluster anchors a wider 52-authority Arab-Jewish municipal forum in cooperation with the Galilee and Valleys Cluster and the Kinneret and Valleys Cluster. That is the largest such formal cooperation framework in Israel. Few comparable municipal-cooperation frameworks exist at this scale anywhere in the Middle East. It is also the operating reality the cluster will be exporting as part of its diplomatic pitch.

Under cluster leadership, two additional assets exist: the IMEC Information and Research Center, dedicated to collecting and consolidating data on the corridor, and the “Next Bay” international conference, which has positioned the cluster as a convener around regional economic questions.

Why an Ambassador, Why Now

The strategic context is laid out in Israel–UAE: $3.2 Billion and Climbing: multi-billion-dollar bilateral trade between Israel and the UAE now moves on functioning sea, air, and customs infrastructure. The unfinished business is the overland corridor — the IMEC vision — which depends on a political development outside the logistics sector’s control.

IMEC, announced at the G20 in September 2023, proposes to link Indian ports to Europe via the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. Haifa Port is the Mediterranean terminus that the entire corridor depends on for European market access. The unbuilt Eilat–Ashdod rail land-bridge remains the cleanest IMEC-relevant infrastructure Israel could build domestically — and the most chronically delayed.

That gives the Haifa Bay region structural leverage in the IMEC conversation. What it has not had is an English- and French-fluent operator whose job is to make that case in foreign capitals.

The appointment fills that gap.

What Melloul Brings

Melloul is a multilingual government and media operator with three decades across French diplomacy, the French Prime Minister’s office, and international broadcasting. He is exactly the profile a cluster competing for European, Gulf, and Indian attention would hire.

He served at France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2001, including as Deputy Spokesperson at the Quai d’Orsay covering strategic affairs, the Middle East, and the United Nations during the Iraq crisis. He moved to the French Ministry of Interior under Dominique de Villepin, then to the Prime Minister’s office as Communications Advisor from 2005 to 2007. In 2013, he was named CEO of i24NEWS, where he built the channel’s English, French, and Arabic operations and led the multi-year campaign that produced 2017 Knesset approval allowing the channel to broadcast inside Israel.

The combined profile is the inverse of a domestic municipal communications hire. It is hired for a different job.

The Pitch He’ll Be Making

Melloul described the role as carrying a dual message — economic opportunity and coexistence — and the two are intertwined in the cluster’s positioning.

The economic pitch is structural: Haifa Bay’s geography is the bottleneck point where the IMEC corridor either terminates on the Mediterranean or doesn’t. Bypass options are limited. Greek and Cypriot ports add transit time and complexity. Egyptian ports are not aligned with the corridor logic. If IMEC is built, Haifa is on the routing map.

The coexistence pitch is the 52-authority Arab-Jewish coalition. For foreign investors, multilateral institutions, and governments looking for a regional story that is not framed in conflict, the cluster offers an operating model — not a position paper. The two messages reinforce each other: the corridor’s underwriting institutions, from the EU to Gulf sovereign wealth, are looking for both economic logic and reputational cover. Northern Israel can offer both, packaged.

The Limit

Saudi normalization remains the single largest variable in the corridor’s long-term viability. As long as Saudi Arabia is not in formal diplomatic relations with Israel, the overland IMEC corridor cannot function as designed. Pilot truck movements have run; the operational template is in place; the political condition is not.

A secondary constraint is regional security — the Red Sea disruption from 2023 onward, the Iranian threat, and the impact on insurance, routing, and investor sentiment.

Neither constraint is one a cluster ambassador can resolve. Both are constraints he can position around. The job is to make sure that when normalization happens — or when corridor capital is allocated short of normalization — Haifa Bay is the named hub and not a footnote.

Bottom Line

Ports move cargo. Corridors move capital. But large infrastructure systems are also political projects, and political projects require advocates.

Frank Melloul’s appointment signals that the Haifa Bay Authorities understand something many infrastructure organizations do not: winning a place on the map requires first winning a place in the conversation.