Move and win roundup: Week of December 7, 2020

AKQA appointed Terence Leong as executive creative director for AKQA Japan. In his new role, Leong is responsible for translating AKQA’s global creative vision in collaboration with local clients for the Japanese market. Leong previously held the position of ECD at R/GA Shanghai. His appointment is effective January 5th, 2021. Leong brings with him experience across APAC, having worked for the likes of Wieden+Kennedy, and R/GA, collaborating with clients such as Nike, Google and Sony. AKQA recently formalised its partnership with Grey Group globally, creating the AKQA Group and with Masanori Tagaya, ECD of Grey Tokyo, Leong’s addition to the team creates a strong creative partnership in the region, bringing a diverse perspective that unites native Japanese and international mindsets.

Ogilvy has made two senior global leadership team appointments, with Stacey Ryan-Cornelius as chief financial officer and Jag Dhanji as chief people officer. Ryan-Cornelius succeeds Steve Goldstein, who is retiring from the business and will stay on for a transition period through early 2021 and  Dhanji takes over from Brian Fetherstonhaugh. Both of them will report to Andy Main as well as WPP chief financial officer John Rogers and WPP chief people officer Jacqui Canney respectively; they will also join the WPP Finance and People leadership teams. Ryan-Cornelius most recently served as CFO and COO of Geometry Global. Dhanji since October 2017, has been  Ogilvy's chief talent officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

Video ad platform Unruly promoted Wataru Nakano to country manager in Japan. Nakano was previously sales director and will now head up all operational and commercial activity for the ad tech company across Japan. He will be responsible for driving Unruly’s growth across the market, including rolling out the additional CTV, In-App and In-stream services added following its acquisition by Tremor International at the start of 2020. Prior to joining Unruly in 2016, Nakano was senior new business manager, Demand, Japan, at Vungle. Nakano will report to Unruly’s group MD, International, Alex Khan.

Essence has been selected as the integrated media agency for personal care brand Mamaearth in India. Managed out of Essence’s Delhi office, the agency will be responsible for media planning and activation for Mamaearth’s brand building and awareness campaigns.

Cosmose, the offline retail tech platform, has appointed Andrew Wu, LVMH group president for
Greater China to its board. Wu, who has overseen more than 60 fashion and luxury brands, will bring his knowledge and experience to Cosmose, with a focus on improving its strategic development in the global luxury market. LVMH has been a client of Cosmose since 2017.

ShareChat, an Indian social-media platform in Indic languages, appointed Ajit Varghese, formerly global president at Wavemaker and longtime APAC leader at Maxus prior to its merger with MEC, as chief commercial officer. Varghese left Wavemaker in August after more than 13 years with WPP. ShareChat says Varghese will be pivotal in expanding and strengthening the platform’s revenue efforts, and building a robust monetisation approach with strategic content partnerships. He will also spearhead its marketing functions. He will report to Farid Ahsan, COO and co-founder.

McCann Worldgroup's MRM named Ronald Ng, previously global chief creative officer at Isobar, as EVP and global chief creative officer, based in New York. (Full story)

Havas Media won integrated media duties for Domino’s Pizza, operated by Jubilant FoodWorks in India, following a multi-agency pitch involving the leading networks. The mandate includes both offline and digital media duties. The business will be handled out of the agency’s Gurgaon office led by Uday Mohan, managing partner North and West.

Strategic communications consultancy Rice announced recent client wins in Singapore:

• Achievers, an employee-engagement platform appointed Rice as strategy communications agency of record.
• The agency will also support Unispace, a global interior design firm, with its corporate communications strategy and programme in Singapore.
• Rice will provide corporate communications support to Mohar Medical, a new business arm of Singapore’s Mohar Shipping Corporation, launched to produce high-quality disposable medical masks.

Airspeeder, a 'flying car' racing series that bills itself as the ‘Formula One of the skies', appointed independent Sydney design and innovation studio North to create a new digital experience platform. North will develop the digital brand identity and an immersive digital platform that focuses on bringing the sport to life for fans, investors, sponsors and commercial partners. Airspeeder races feature 4-meter-long, piloted electric octocopters that can hit speeds of up to 200 km/h.

Malaysia's Ensemble Worldwide has promoted Didi Pirinyuang to executive creative director, replacing Chan Woei Hern who is departing the agency after nearly six years. It's not yet known where the former ECD is going. Pirinyuang joined Ensemble in 2017 as associate creative director and was promoted to creative director in 2019. She was named in Campaign Asia-Pacific's 40 Under 40 list for 2020. Prior to joining Ensemble, she was creative group head at Naga DDB and GOVT KL (rebranded as The Clan). Pirinyuang will report directly to Amit Sutha, CEO of UM, UM Studios and Ensemble Worldwide in Malaysia.

FutureBrand has promoted Gianni Tozzi to the role of chief creative officer for Europe and Asia. Operating out of the Milan office, Tozzi will now oversee the entire creative output of FutureBrand across both the European and Asian markets. Tozzi steps into his new role after over a decade as FutureBrand Milan’s executive creative director, during which time he has led the firm to win several awards including two D&AD pencils.

MediaCom has extended Rupert McPetrie's remit from CEO of China to oversee the Greater China region. McPetrie has been leading the media agency's China operations for more than five years, prior to which he held a 17-year tenure at Zenith across the UK, Russia and Prague. MediaCom APAC CEO Mark Heap said McPetrie has helped cement China as "one of the strongest pillars of our global network". He will now work closely with MediaCom's Hong Kong and Taiwan leaders Alice Chow and Nicky Huang with a focus on "finding synergies and best practice", McPetrie said. He will relocate to Hong Kong to commence work in January 2021 whilst continuing to keep Shanghai as his main working base.

DataTile, an independent marketing analytics company appointed Steve Garton as senior partner, based in Hong Kong. Garton's previous roles include MD of media for Greater China at Ipsos, global head of media at Synovate and regional head of business development at ACNielsen. The company also named Alex Maddox as senior partner, based in the UK. She was formerly MD at Telmar Communications. DataTile has also revamped its brand identity and website to showcase its capabilities, experience and client network.

Ogilvy won appointment as agency of record for Decathlon Singapore following a competitive pitch. The agency will work with media partner Neo Media World and will be tasked with building the Decathlon brand to accelerate its growth in the market. Ogilvy will handle integrated communications work which will involve brand strategy, creative, social, public relations and digital services. The brand recently opened Decathlon Orchard, its fifth experience store and 12th physical location in Singapore since its entry in 2013. The store features digital technologies that enhance the shopping experience, including VR experiential stations, robot stocking units and payment integration with the brand's app. 

Wavemaker Indonesia has handed general manager Dwaraknath Naidu a new role of chief growth officer, responsible for driving the agency's growth through new business acquisition and identifying new products and revenue streams. Naidu will also drive adoption of Wavemaker's 'Provocative Planning' framework, developed earlier this year. Naidu has worked with GroupM for 14 years across India and Indonesia in various capacities. He will take up the new role from January 1, 2021.

Wharf Hotels has hired Alice Au as its group director of digital marketing. Au has more than 20 years of experience in customer-centric marketing management specialising in automated and integrated marketing. She joins from DFS Group where she was global head of marketing automation and customer loyalty management. Au will spearhead the hotel group’s digital transformation by exploring new technology innovations and overseeing customer engagement for both the Niccolo and Marco Polo Hotels brands and its portfolio of sixteen hotels.

Bajaj Finance, the lending and deposits arm of Indian financial services company Bajaj Finserv, has appointed WPP's Mirum as its social listening partner. Bajaj Finance has an extensive product portfolio that spans lending, insurance, systematic deposits and wealth advisory. As part of the mandate, Mirum will provide social listening, social CRM and online reputation management services from its Mumbai office.

Ecommerce service provider ACommerce has appointed Roberto Kauffmann as group chief product officer. Kauffmann brings 20 years of experience in building ecommerce and digital payments products for companies across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. His latest role was as CPO of Singapore-based ecommerce platform Shopmatic. He will be leading the development of ACommerce’s platform IQ Suites that houses the company’s proprietary SaaS products. He will be based in Bangkok, Thailand.

GroupM media agency Essence has won full-service, integrated media agency of record duties for the Jeep brand’s line of locally produced vehicles in China. Essence’s Shanghai office will lead the account, and Essence will be responsible for brand strategy, media planning and activation, as well as creative development and production, for both offline and digital campaigns. Jeep in China is a brand of GAC FCA, a joint venture between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC). GAC FCA produces the Jeep Cherokee, Jeep Renegade, Jeep Compass and Jeep Grand Commander vehicle models at plants in Guangzhou and Changsha.

Victoria Coplans Hope launched Hope Communications in Hong Kong. Hope, the CEO, was previously VP of employee engagements and communications at Shangri-La Hotels and has also worked at HSBC and AIA. She said the Asia-focused consultancy will provide services including employee engagement and communications, change and leadership communications and redundancy communications advisory. Hope Communications will partner with Ashbury Communications to deliver integrated internal and external communications propositions for corporate change processes in Asia.

BBDO India has been chosen to manage the integrated creative mandate for PagarBook, which provides an employee management system. The account was won following a multi-agency pitch and will be handled through BBDO India’s Delhi and Bangalore offices. The agency will be tasked with the mandate of building and scaling-up the brand and its marketing ecosystem through television, print, radio, social media and other relevant touchpoints.