Mark Patterson, CEO of GroupM Asia-Pacific, confirmed the news and said that the transition process was started at the beginning of the year. Corrigan is leaving to concentrate more on his two restaurants in Kuala Lumpur — Little Havana and Magnificent Fish and Chip Bar.
"Paul has been a rock for our business in Malaysia since he joined two years ago," said Patterson. "He is a real professional with great local insight and experience. We now have a strong, vibrant business that perfomed very well in a tough 2009 and I am sure, based on the foundations Paul has laid, Girish will lead our businesses to great success in 2010 and beyond. Girish has been a star in Vietnam, he will be in KL too," said Patterson.
Corrigan, who leaves at the end of April, took on the CEO role in April 2008 from Henry Tan, who left the agency to join Astro as chief operating officer.
Prior to joining GroupM, Corrigan was working with the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (Casbaa) as lead advertising consultant, advising the body on pay-TV initiatives.