Move and win roundup: Week of April 24, 2023

Leong Wai Foong, chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO Greater China, is stepping down from the agency role to continue his career in music and composing. His exit triggers a string of leadership changes—Arthur Tsang, CCO of BBDO China, will step up in Leong's position. Nicole Ma, the CCO of BBDO Shanghai, will now become CCO of BBDO China and Kevin Jin, executive creative director of Shanghai has been promoted to CCO of the shop.Get more details here. 

Lemma, an independent omnichannel Supply Side Platform (SSP), has appointed Areef Vohra as country head for Australia and New Zealand. In his new role, Vohra will be responsible for driving Lemma's business growth in Australia and New Zealand, leading the company's sales, brand & agency partnerships, as well as developing and executing strategies to expand Lemma’s market share. Prior to Lemma, Vohra served as head of strategic sales and partnerships with MedicalDirector & was previously a commercial director with Veridooh.

Enigma, a full-service independent agency, has appointed Dean van der Merwe and Bianca Holtsbaum to the newly created roles of design director and senior business manager, property & place; Enigma’s specialist property marketing division. With over 15 years of architecture, design and brand strategy experience, van der Merwe worked at a range of leading firms in Australia. He was lead designer at Bullet Studios, before joining Enigma. Prior to Enigma, Holtsbaum was Brand Manager at Merivale.  

Mindshare Australia has appointed Robert Bellamy as chief strategy officer, effective from August. Bellamy will report into Gavin Gibson, Mindshare chief product officer. Before returning to Australia, Bellamy worked at Initiative UK as head of growth, responsible for leading new business strategy and organic growth, and supercharging culture. He brought more than a decade’s experience in the media and marketing industry and worked at agencies in Australia, the UK and the US with global and Australian clients such as the NSW Government, Xbox, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Fitbit, LS&Co, GoPro, and Gallo. 

Initiative Australia has appointed Paige Wheaton as chief investment and partnerships officer, effective from mid-July, to replace Simon Reid, who left the agency earlier this year. Based in Sydney, Wheaton also joins Initiative’s national senior leadership team. She will be responsible for Initiative’s investment and partnerships approach, working closely with clients nationally to improve growth, value and innovation. Before Initiative, Wheaton worked as national head of investment at Mindshare. With 15 years of media experience, Wheaton started her career at Mediacom and worked for several Australian independent media agencies. 

Integrated communications agency Flare Communications has been appointed by luxury giant Tom Ford in Hong Kong as its partner for comms and public relations. Effective mid-April, the remit includes Tom Ford's fashion portfolio, in addition to handling public relations and communications duties for beauty, which Flare has been handling since 2016. The account was won after a competitive pitch. Read more details on PRWeek Asia. 

Quantum Consumer Solutions has elevated Amrita Sen from associate partner to partner in Indonesia, to further strengthen its senior management team in Asia. Sen has been with Quantum since 2014, starting in Mumbai and relocating to Jakarta in 2020. Her commitment and dedication to achieving vital strategic outcomes for clients has been pivotal in shaping and advancing Quantum’s offering in Indonesia.

Leo Burnett Australia has hired Bec Johnson-Pond, Tim Woolford and Tommy Cehak as group creative directors to bolster its creative leadership in the region. Johnson-Pond's is a seasoned creative with a career spanning three countries and 18 years at Colenso BBDO Auckland and TBWA. Meanwhile, Woolford and Cehak join from DDB Group Australia where they worked together as creative directors on globally awarded campaigns like Foxtel’s ‘Grave of Thrones’ and Volkswagen Golf ‘GTI Hijack’.

Marketing and communications agency Archetype has added Neeva and Databricks to its clients roster. Neeva is an ad-free, AI-powered search engine and Databricks is a data and AI platform. 

Supply-side platform Magnite has hired Marcus Pousette as its new senior business development director, based in Singapore. He will be responsible for supporting and accelerating the growth of Magnite throughout Asia by growing new and existing strategic supply partnerships across the Asia region, with a specific focus on video streaming and omnichannel partners. 

Sprinklr, a customer experience management platform, has promoted Haitham Elkhatib to senior vice president for growth markets. In this role, Elkhatib will be responsible for accelerating the growth of Sprinklr’s platform in MEA and APJI – which includes the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Japan, and India markets. He joined Sprinklr in 2018 as regional director in Dubai. 

GCI Health, a health and medical dedicated communications agency, has appointed James Keng Lim as director of creative strategy and Mike Tegg as director of public health policy. In these newly created roles, Keng Lim and Tegg will support the agency’s further growth into specialty areas, scaling the agency’s creative strategy and policy capabilities across the region to meet the growing needs of Asia-Pacific’s healthcare industries. Keng Lim joins from Singapore’s Ministry of Health, having previously worked in senior creative positions for agencies including Publicis, Dentsu and Ogilvy. Tegg  most recently held regional and national positions with Novartis and Johnson & Johnson, respectively. Prior, he held advisory and press secretary roles for Australian government agencies and for the former Leader of the Australian Labor Party. 

DDB Group Hong Kong has hired Alejandro Canciobello as regional executive creative director. As regional ECD, Canciobello will be responsible for creative development for clients with multi-market needs, reporting directly to CEO, Andreas Krasser. Originally from Peru, Canciobello's career has taken him across South America and Asia and he boasts of a string of awards to his name, including Cannes, Clio, LIA, New York Festival, One Show, D&AD, amongst others. 

Havas Media Group has expanded its ecommerce consultancy, Havas Market to Hong Kong after its foray in Australia and Singapore. Carmen Wu has come on board as head of e-commerce to run the Hong Kong operations. Havas Market aims to deliver solutions that support clients looking to transform their commerce approach and actively engage their audience across a highly competitive category. 

Marketing agency CSM Sport & Entertainment (CSM) has been appointed by Rugby Australia and The British & Irish Lions as the exclusive sponsorship agency for the Lions Tour to Australia 2025. CSM will manage the sale of all sponsorship rights under concurrent agreements with the two rightsholders, as the world’s most famous touring side heads down under for the first time since 2013.  CSM is tasked with identifying and securing a title partner of the tour, front-of-shirt partner for the Lions, secondary sponsors and technical suppliers. In addition, CSM will provide strategic advice and sales support to optimise the value of sponsorship assets, as well as managing the commercial delivery of the partnership programme and key events for the Tour. CSM’s digital and data team will also be integrated into the joint commercial strategy. 

Tourism Fiji has appointed Srishti Narayan, head of global marketing, as chief marketing officer to succeed departing Emma Campbell. Tourism Fiji announced the reshuffle in a  LinkedIn post and expressed gratitude to Campbell for her contributions, particularly during the most challenging period through Covid-19. Narayan joined as head of global marketing last August. Prior to Tourism Fiji, she worked for Stuff, Bank of New Zealand and ANZ. The LinkedIn post mentions she “has won the CMO role following a competitive selection process”. Outgoing Campbell had been with the organisation for almost four years. She joined as director of marketing and was soon promoted to the role of CMO in September 2021. Campbell was selected as Campaign Asia’s Women to Watch APAC in 2022.

South China Morning Post (SCMP) has appointed Lou Wee as director of global strategic business. Based in Hong Kong, Wee sits within SCMP’s Advertising and Marketing Solutions (AMS) business to build and nurture long-term partnerships with global strategic accounts. He rejoins SCMP after his move to Vice Media as vice president of sales & brand partnerships, APAC in 2022. Wee previously held roles as head of advertising sales for Hong Kong and regional markets, and regional director of advertising and partnerships from 2018-2022 in SCMP. With over 15 years of diverse media and advertising experience acquired from Hong Kong and Singapore, Wee worked for VICE Media, FOX Networks Group, CNBC and The Wall Street Journal.

Kwik Kopy Australia, a design, print and signage organisation, has appointed InsideOut PR, a Sydney PR agency and a partner of global communications group IPREX, to support Kwik Kopy’s growing profile in the market and the innovative releases that will empower more businesses to make their mark on the world.