OMD hires Charlotte Lee from Mindshare as new APAC CEO

OMD has revamped its regional leadership, luring Charlotte Lee from Mindshare to lead the media agency's operations as Asia-Pacific chief executive while also announcing a new strategy boss and client chief.

In filling the role vacated by Stephen Li last October, Lee will join the Omnicom Media Group agency in July at a critical juncture. Media consumption habits have been radically altered by the pandemic as performance marketing and ecommerce channels rapidly gain prominence.  At OMD based in Singapore, she will now work with clients like Apple, McDonald’s, Beiersdorf and Philips to help them generate more value from a dynamic media environment.  

With two decades of global, regional and local experience across North America and Asia Pacific, Lee is well-versed in helping brands navigate through change, most recently as Mindshare's APAC managing director. Lee led key global accounts at the GroupM agency, such as Dyson, Facebook and Zespri, while serving as the regional client lead for new business. Earlier, she also led the HSBC Asia-Pacific business in a prior role for WPP within Mindshare and helped set up multi-disciplinary digital performance hubs for key clients. Prior to this, Lee held business and strategy roles at Dentsu in Hong Kong and Starcom in Toronto. 

Assisting Lee at OMD will be two recently appointed leaders to round out the agency's new regional team. David McCallen, previously chief strategy officer at OMD New Zealand has been promoted to APAC CSO, while Matthew Ho came on board last fall as OMG chief client officer, focused on OMD clients. McCallen, who fills the position left by Gavin Gibson's promotion to OMG China strategy chief, is credited with a successful run of new business wins and international awards for OMD in New Zealand. Ho, meanwhile, has a wealth of technology and sales experience from Facebook, Shopper360 and Huawei. 

With the new OMD leadership trio in place, OMG APAC CEO Tony Harradine expressed confidence in the agency's new brain trust. “Charlotte’s demonstrated expertise in client management, business operations and product strategy translates to a singular advantage for OMD in APAC, as we look to leverage emerging opportunities for our clients and our organisation," he said. "Add in the combined skills and experience of David and Matthew, and clients have the perfect equation and partner in OMD." 

George Manas, CEO of OMD Worldwide added: “APAC is an extremely strategic market for OMD, one that is starting to set the pace and agenda for global clients and agencies alike. Coupled with their impressive track records, the appointments of Charlotte, David and Matthew underscore our commitment to creating actionable and measurable solutions for our clients through a reimagined and reignited agency offering."