Move and win roundup: Week of January 10, 2022

Hypebeast appointed Joshua Okada as managing director in Japan. He was previously chief growth officer at ADK, based in Singapore and covering the South and Southeast Asia regions. He has also worked as a marketing planner at Toyota, where he worked on showcases including the Olympics and Paralympics Asia branding and a CSR initiative 'Start Your Impossible: The Dual Heroes'. In addition managing the Japan office he will focus on new business and strategic growth, using Hypebeast's creative and editorial capabilities, plus its fanbase, to help brands and partners make an impact, the company said. Okada will report to Tiff Shum, vice president of brand partnerships in APAC.

The Peak Singapore, a luxury lifestyle magazine under SPH Media Trust, appointed Lauren Tan as editor-in-chief. She takes over from Farhan Shah, who has held the position for two years. Tan, who will report to publishing director Joanna Lee-Miller, joins from A Magazine where she had been the founding editor-in-chief. Prior to this, served as the editorial head of Prestige magazine.

Jakarta-based consumer-engagement platform Grivy appointed as a strategic advisor David Porter, who is a member of Campaign Asia-Pacific's Power List of the region's most influential marketers and who officially retires from Unilever in February as global vice president of media. Porter will help Grivy set its strategic direction on the agency business with the aim of providing maximum business value to clients and partners. Grivy touts itself as a tech and data enabler for consumer brands, and is already working with multiple clients and agency partners such as Mindshare, Dentsu and Publicis. It has strategic partnerships with Samsung, Google and Line, as well as the two largest retailers in Indonesia.

Wunderman Thompson Singapore hired Yeo Wee Lee as head of technology. He was previosuly technology director at Wunderman before joining WPP as project manager for business systems. He also has prior experience at DDB Group Singapore and with clients such as Singtel, Starhub, Citibank, Changi Airport Group, McDonald’s, Health Promotion Board, Ministry of Manpower, Samsung, Unilever and Johnson & Johnson. He reports to Nimesh Desai, CEO of Wunderman Thompson Singapore.

VMLY&R Thailand appointed Anuwat 'Bert' Nitipanont as chief creative officer, effective January 1. He was most recently CCO at BBDO Bangkok. Nitipanont reports to Yupin Muntzing, CEO of VMLY&R Thailand, and joins a regional team of creative leaders headed up by Valerie Madon, Asia CCO. 

ALTBalaji, an Indian OTT platform, appointed Pitchfork Partners Strategic Consulting as its communication partner, to strengthen ALTBalaji's reputation through multi-channel outreach to increase awareness about the platform and its shows, and to expand the viewer base. ALTBalaji has a library of 89+ original Hindi shows, which are also dubbed in regional languages like Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.  

After a career spanning 22 years with P&G, Hyoeun Kim, most recently vice president of Olay Greater China, will take on the role of vice president of LG Electronics Global Marketing Center. In 2016, Kim joined Olay Greater China and was credited with their business turnaround by renewing premium product innovation. She was also behind the "Fearless of age" Olay campaign with creative partner Grey Hong Kong.

CNN Digital Worldwide has promoted Steve George to director of CNN Digital for the Asia-Pacific region, based in Hong Kong. He is responsible for digital content, strategy and publishing and leads a team of digital producers, reporters and editors across APAC. Prior to this role, George was a Senior News Editor for CNN Digital. 

72andSunny Singapore has hired Farhan Darma as senior art director and promoted Daniel Ko to group creative director effective immediately. Darma was most recently at VCCP working on the global Shell business and Netflix. Ko leads the team on Johnnie Walker, Carousell and GIC among others.

Tata Consumer Products (TCP), the consumer products company uniting the principal food and beverage interests of the Tata Group, has awarded its consolidated media duties of media planning and buying for its India business to Wavemaker India. The agency has been the media agency for the India Packaged Beverages division of TCP which included brands such as Tata Tea and Tata Coffee Grand. Wavemaker will now also handle media for the consolidated India business which includes brands like Tata Salt, Tata Sampann, Tata Soulfull, Tata Fruski among others.  The win comes at the back of a multi-agency pitch. The businesses will be managed from Wavemaker’s Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi offices.

Intrepid Group Asia, an ecommerce enabler, has appointed Steven Ghoos as regional digital marketing director and Anna March as regional director of Ecommerce & Performance Marketing. Both report to Group CEO, Jasper Knoben. March joined Intrepid Group late last year, with close to two decades of experience in leading performance marketing strategy and teams at media agencies across APAC and the UK. Ghoos was most recently managing director at digital agency Lion & Lion. 

LenDenClub, a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform in India, has handed over its digital marketing mandate to Chimp&z. The mandate includes social media management, creative solutions, ORM, media planning & strategy, and influencer marketing for LenDenClub and its loan product InstaMoney. The mandate was won post a multi-agency pitch.

MediaMonks appointed Jessica Davey as SVP of client services for APAC. She was formerly with McCann Worldgroup as the chief marketing officer and director of creative excellence for Asia-Pacific. Prior to that she worked at Geometry Global and Ogilvy in London. Davey has nearly two decades of experience and has worked with clients including Coca-Cola, Unilever, Heineken, Mondelēz, Reckitt, Philips, L’Oreal, Mastercard and Mars. Her priorities at MediaMonks will be using her domain expertise and salesmanship to deepen and broaden client engagement, continuing to foster creative ambitions and culture as well as maintaining solutions excellence, the company said.

Dentsu China appointed Sheldon Xu as chief operating officer, effective December 13 and reporting to CEO Deric Wong. The role is a new one for the company. Xu has more than 20 years of experience in China and other international markets, including as COO of MetLife China and MD of Publicis Touchpoint Solutions China. He has also held several roles at AIG in China and the US and worked in the US as a management consultant at PwC.

Havas Group India appointed Sumeer Mathur as national planning head and managing partner of Havas Worldwide India, the group's creative agency. He was previously senior vice president of national planning and strategy head at Edelman. He has also worked at DDB Mudra Group, JWT, Rediffusion Y&R, Contract and Lowe Lintas. He will be partnering with Manas Lahiri, managing director and Ravinder Siwach, ED and NCD to scale up the agency, collaborate with key clients including Reckitt, Citroën, Dabur, Suzuki, William Grant, Tata and Harman (JBL), and drive the strategic planning vision and expertise at Havas Creative India. Mathur will be based out of the Gurgaon office and report to Rana Barua, group CEO of Havas Group India.

WarnerMedia's HBO Max named Jason Monteiro general manager of HBO Max Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He was most recently director of AVOD at Shahid, an Arabic content-streaming platform. Prior to that he was GM of Indonesia and Malaysia for Iflix, where he also served as CMO. He will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer business, leading content experience, brand, marketing, subscriber management, digital partnerships and data analytics. Based in Singapore, he will oversee the existing HBO GO streaming service and the "eventual" launch of HBO Max in the region, the company said.