Move and win round-up: TBWA, McCann, MSLGroup, Bates CHI & Partners, Publicis, Mindshare, and more

PEOPLE MOVES

TBWA's Nils Andersson will take on the role of regional creative president for Asia, in addition to his current responsibilities as president of TBWA Greater China. There was no regional creative president role prior to Andersson's appointment.

McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific announced the relocation of Nadia Tuma-Weldon, SVP and director of Truth Central, from New York to Singapore. She joined Truth Central in 2013.

MSLGroup announced the acquisition of China-based cause marketing consultancy, Have Faith in Your Brand, and appointed its founder and president, Faith Brewitt, as CEO, Greater China. Brewitt will also serve as Asia Practice Leader for MSLGroup’s Corporate and Brand Citizenship Practice.

Bates CHI & Partners appointed Ramanathan Balasubramanian CEO of its ASEAN office in Jakarta and promoted Hendra Lesmono to creative chairman, a newly formed role. Ram, as he is known, will relocate from Mumbai where he has been managing partner of Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai & Kolkatta for three years.

Publicis Communications appointed Sidhaesh Subrah as client services director for Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore, a new role reporting to Lou Dela Pena, CEO of Publicis Communications Singapore. Prior to this, Subrah led a portfolio of global and regional accounts at sister agency Publicis Singapore.

McCann Worldgroup Taiwan promoted current MD Gary Chi and ECD Kevin Yang to CEO and CCO, respectively.

Taptica, which provides a mobile ad platform, opened an office in Seoul, following the recent establishment of an office in Beijing. The company appointed Hoon Lee as general manager in Korea. He fomerly spent 10 years at Yahoo, most recently as head of APAC search sales.

Polycom appointed Gabrielle Cichero as senior director, marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ). Based in Sydney, she will be responsible for Australia & New Zealand, India, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. She was most recently head of marketing for APJ at FireEye.

BBDO Singapore appointed Lauren Lim, previously associate creative director at BBDO Guerrero, as creative director; Mark Ibaviosa, previously senior copywriter at Grey Group Singapore, as senior copywriter; Tan Zi Wei, previously art director at TBWA Singapore, as art director; and Amos Chen, a recent graduate from Nanyang Technological University, as copywriter.

Mindshare appointed Piyanuch Meemook to the newly created role of chief digital officer for Thailand. She has been with Mindshare since 2012 and will continue reporting to Pathamawan Sathaporn, MD of Mindshare Thailand, and Sanchit Sanga, chief digital officer of Mindshare Asia Pacific.

RF Kyodo, sister company of Ruder Finn Asia, hired Norihide Imai as deputy general manager and Tashiro Chieko as account director. Imai will be based in Shanghai and will report to GM Jefferson Hou. He has 35 years of experience at Dentsu Inc. Prior to entering the advertising industry, Imai played baseball in the Tokyo Big 6 Baseball League.

Benedict Gordon has joined the Prophet in Hong Kong as an associate partner. Before joining Prophet, he was managing director of Brand Union, where he led board-level engagements with many of Hong Kong’s leading corporates, including HKEX, Hong Kong Jockey Club and Swire Properties.

WE Marketing Group has promoted Ryan Cai to group creative director. She will be responsible for driving the development of creative capabilities for clients such as Centaine, Visit California, Uni-president, Ucar, Intime and Ashley.

Joining DDB Hong Kong as head of digital creative is Marco Lam. His most recent position was ECD at Mirum in charge of digital projects for Nikon, Huawei and HSBC. Marcin Brzezinski also re-joins DDB HK as creative director, following an earlier stint with the agency in 2014.

WINS

Tribal Worldwide Singapore was appointed as creative agency of record for Heineken by Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore after a competitive pitch process.

Fred & Farid Shanghai has been appointed branding agency, key creative partner and communication strategist for Sephora China, Mondelēz China and one of China's top three smartphone brands, Vivo.

BBDO Greater China won creative duties for Vita Tea across Greater China from a multi-office effort between BBDO Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The win is from a two-round pitch against incumbent agency DDB.

After a four-way pitch in May, Leo Burnett China has won Yili's high-end milk brand, Jindian. LB will be responsible for Jindian's branding and marketing communications until the end of 2017. Participating in the pitch was incumbent Havas Beijing, which served the client for the past four years.

Sporting events organizer Ironman Endurance Asia has appointed Huntington Communications as official PR agency of the 2016 ASICS City Relay (ACR), scheduled for 24 September in Singapore.