Gearing will be based at Infiniti’s global headquarters in Hong Kong, and report to Hugues Fabre, director of Infiniti Global Marketing.
Calling the role as an “excellent opportunity”, Gearing described Infiniti as a luxury car brand “with a phenomenal current and planned product lineup, led by an amazingly talented team”.
Richard Tan, president and chief executive of DDB North China, said that Rapp was not looking to replace Gearing. Instead, Rapp’s operations will be managed by Jit Ng, DDB’s North China vice-president and Shanghai managing director, and Neil Holt, managing director of Rapp and Tribal Worldwide Beijing.
Gearing has worked in the Asian marketing industry for 17 years and worked closely with Infiniti and Nissan on the agency side while at Tequila.
Infiniti is a luxury automotive brand owned by Nissan. It moved its global headquarters to Hong Kong last year and is aiming for significant international expansion in markets such as China.
On Friday, the company named Vincent Gillet as vice-president of marketing, reporting to the president, Johan de Nysschen.