Move and win roundup: Week of August 24, 2020

Patrick Whitnall has resigned as managing director of Publicis Content, after just five months in this role, even though he spent 15 years at the network. He made the annoucement on LinkedIn and at the time of his departure he managed a team of 1,500 people, according to his profile there. He had previously worked with Starcom Mediavest and Mindshare in various capacities. Publicis is yet to announce his replacement. 

Following the success of Lazada’s first content-commerce collaboration with Mediacorp for the inaugural National Day Sale, the Southeast Asian ecommerce platform has snnounced a second partnership with the media media network for its 9.9 sale. For the upcoming September campaign, Mediacorp will expand its offerings on LazMall, a virtual mall with over 18,000 international and local brands. This year, Lazada’s 9.9 LazMall Big Brands Sale will take place from 9 to 13 September, and includes the quarterly Lazada Online Tech Show dedicated to electronic items. The five-day campaign will combine Lazada’s eCommerce offerings with Mediacorp’s shoppertainment content 

Henkel’s adhesive brand Loctite appointed Artefact China to a remit that includes strategising, building and running Loctite’s 'Demand Generation' transformation program, which aims to digitally augment the company's conventional business model and sustain its leadership position in the adhesive market. The win comes after a pitch that lasted from March to June. The program involves the creation of machine learning-based lead scoring system to better qualify leads and analyze customer lifetime value; omnichannel media activation to create and capture new customer demand; and direct-to-customer acquisition using O2O and e-commerce to drive sales conversion and ROI.

Architecture firm Ronald Lu & Partners appointed Gusto Luxe as its retained communications agency for Greater China and Southeast Asia, following a competitive pitch. The agency, which has offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and London, will work with the firm to develop its communications strategy and increase awareness across the region. Among the firm's projects are the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong and TODTOWN, a transit-oriented development in Shanghai.

EVOS Esports and Visa announced a strategic collaboration in Indonesia. Visa will be the preferred form of payment when fans apply for EVOS Esports’ membership, and EVOS Esports will enable payments via Visa for in-game currency purchases and EVOS Esports merchandise. Additional initiatives are being planned for coming months.

RedDoorz, a Southeast Asia hotel management and booking platform, promoted Liviu Nedef from senior vice president of marketing and communications, to CMO. The company also hired Kelvin Teo as chief operating officer and Trixie Thye as regional vice president of human resources. Nedef will continue to play a key role on RedDoorz’s leadership team and is responsible for marketing, communications, and direct business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. Teo was previously MD for Groupon Asia and chief business officer for finance portal MoneySmart Group. Thye was previously regional HR VP and business partner with Beijing-headquartered IT consulting and outsourcing company Pactera. The company operates a network of more than 1,800 properties in over 150 cities, spanning Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Mars Petcare appointed Pitchfork Partners Strategic Consulting as its strategic communication consultant for India. The agency will be tasked with building corporate reputation and engaging with relevant stakeholders.

Independent Special Group Australia hired Paige Prettyman as MD in its new Melbourne office, where she joins Rebecca Stambanis, the Melbourne office's founding partner. The two will work to grow Special Group’s Melbourne offering, which includes locally based clients Bonds and CUB. The agency said it will operate as one office that leverages talent from both Sydney and Melbourne. Stambanis's CV includes stints as global group strategy director at Wieden+Kennedy Portland, global chief strategy officer at TBWA Media Arts Lab in LA and group strategy director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. Prettyman was previously group business director at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, prior to which she held positions at Y&R and Marketforce.

BBH Singapore appointed Emily Hudson as the business development director for its design offering, Black Sheep Design. She joins with 10 years of experience at Design Bridge, in London and Singapore, where she was most recently a business development director managing clients including JDE, Zespri, Diageo, Mondelez and Unilever. Launched in 2017, Black Sheep Design works with clients such as Piaggio Group, Pernod Ricard, Ascendas-Singbridge, Singtel, Jollibee, NTUC Income, Fairprice, UOB and Rolls-Royce across brand, identity and experience design projects.

In Australia, creative director Simon Jarosz and business strategist Jen Peace have launched We Are Otter, billed as a flexible strategy, creative and production collaboration. The agency says it will provide an end-to-end service, with nimble, bespoke teams to match marketing needs as and when required. Jarosz has more than 20 years of experience and was most recently ECD at digital agency SLIK, which followed more than three years as national creative director at Mediacom. He has also worked at JWT, M&C Saatchi, The Monkeys and Saatchi & Saatchi. Peace is the former MD at Enigma Communications. She also worked as head of brand at Bankwest for more than three years and has held senior roles at TBWA Sydney and London, Clemenger BBDO Sydney and Ogilvy & Mather.

SEEK Asia, which operates JobStreet and jobsDB, appointed Peter Bithos as CEO. He most recently the CEO of premium digital streaming service HOOQ, a joint venture between Singtel, Sony and Warner Brothers. He previously held senior roles at Singtel, including chief operating officer of Globe Telecom in the Philippines. He takes over from Suresh Thiru, who has served as CEO since 2016.

Video adtech platform Unruly has promoted its UK managing director Alex Khan to group MD of international, a role which gives Khan responsibility for driving Unruly’s growth across Asia-Pacific. This includes overseeing the roll out of the business' additional CTV, in-app and in-stream services added following its acquisition by Tremor International at the start of 2020. Khan takes over the APAC region from Phil Townend, who has left his role as chief revenue officer for APAC, Middle East and Africa after 10 years at the firm.

Short video app Triller has appointed TikTok's Raj Mishra as head of operations in India. Mishra moves from TikTok where he was country manager. He was ByteDance's first employee in India. 

Australia's News Corp has lured back Luke Manderson to take up the newly-created role of chief product officer. Manderson had previously held various roles at News Corp in Sydney across its network divisions and magazine publishing arms, before moving to the media organisation's New York headquarters in 2015 to become vice president of product management. 

B2B marketing firm Selling Simplified Group has opened a new office in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the sixth APAC office for the company in three years. Until now, the company has been servicing New Zealand clients via its Sydney office.