Thoughtful Media Group appoints Timothy Kwok as China GM

TMG creates and licenses online personalities and formats, which are designed to attract specific recurring audiences for marketers and advertising agencies. It is active in the US and entered the Chinese market in 2010.

Until Kwok appointment, Jak Severson, global CEO, and Dan Thorman, global CFO of the company have been taking turns to come to Shanghai (from their base in Los Angeles) to oversee the 30-strong China operation.

Kwok has worked in diverse markets including the US, India and Hong Kong, but has been based in Shanghai for the past eight years. He has worked for companies such as Sapient, Communication Central Group (now known as Digitas China), Lemon Asia and Shepherd Digital, which he founded in 2007.

He joins Thoughtful China from full-service digital marketing agency Great Works, where he was an executive vice president. He relocated to China with Lemon as director of operations, growing that business from 10 people in 2004 to about 70 within 18 months, while also adding offices in Beijing and Shenzhen.

During his career, Kwok has handled diverse digital marketing campaigns for brands such as Audi, China Eastern Airlines, Financial Times, KFC, Nippon Paint, Philips Lighting and Sony Electronics.

“Timothy’s background in process building will help us systematise the often frenetic nature of large volume content creation, promotion and audience activation for advertisers,” said Severson.

Reported in March, TMG hired Frederic Dominioni as global chief operating officer in China, but the company confirmed that it was not a good fit by mutual decision and he resigned in mid-April.