Move and win roundup: Week of January 27, 2020

Grey promoted Kanaporn Hutcheson from MD to CEO and appointed Thipayachand Hasdin as chief operating officer at GreyNJ United in Bangkok. Hutcheson, a co-founder of Nude, which merged with JEH United to become NudeJEH, which was then acquired by Grey in 2015 to become GreyNJ United, has more than 25 years of marketing experience, and has played an integral role in adding numerous clients to the agency's roster, including Kasikornbank, Samsung, Tesco Lotus, Ananda development, Sabina and Maungthai Insurance. She served as client service director at TBWA Thailand for a decade earlier in her career. Hasdin was most recently chief client officer and then MD at BBDO Bangkok, prior to which she served as GM at Alpha245 (Leo Burnett Group Thailand). She was named to Campaign Asia-Pacific's Women to Watch in 2017.  

Video adtech firm SpotX has made four new appointments in Southeast Asia, to support its premium online video and OTT business in the region. Anthony Tsang has been named director of publisher development for APAC. He was formerly publisher solutions lead for Southeast Asia and Greater China at Oracle Data Cloud. Tasha Kaur is the new director of Asia operations, after previously holding senior operations roles at Xaxis and most recently at RhythmOne. Both Tsang and Kaur join the SpotX Southeast Asia leadership team and will be based in Singapore. In addition, Jean Tang, formerly media strategy lead at Unruly, joins as supply account manager, while Rika Octaria joins the Indonesian team as demand facilitation manager, moving from publisher Kompas. 

Foxtel appointed Saatchi & Saatchi as its strategic advertising and creative agency, marking the end of a relationship with DDB. The appointment follows a multi-agency agency review conducted by Foxtel over recent months.

Branding and design firm Eight Partnership announced the opening of a Tokyo office, which will be headed by Toshiyuki Sanada. Sanada has experience with real estate developer Mori Building, including in China and Southeast Asia, and more recently headed Powered by We, the workplace design business of WeWork Japan. The company listed recent Japan work including luxury residential work for Mori Building’s Toranomon Hills project, brand strategy for the Hokkaido Fighters ‘baseball city’ in Sapporo, luxury hotel branding for Toyota and Hyatt near Nagoya and a series of alpine resort projects in Niseko.

Weber Shandwick appointed Tyler Kim as vice chair for Asia Pacific in addition to his current roles of managing director for North Asia (excluding China) and head of crisis communications for Asia Pacific. In his expanded role, he will drive the firm’s outbound business strategy, helping Asia-based clients build their businesses abroad while continuing to oversee operations in Korea and Japan. He will work closely with Darren Burns, also vice chair for Asia Pacific, who currently leads the firm’s corporate innovation, marketing and new business development. Going forward, Burns will focus more on developing client-led opportunities in the region’s emerging markets. Both Kim and Burns continue to report to Baxter Jolly, APAC CEO. 

Food and Wine Victoria appointed Town Square as lead creative agency for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival (MFWF) following a three-way pitch. The independent agency will manage all campaign creative, production and strategy for the festival, taking place March 19 through 29. Town Square previously worked with Food and Wine Victoria on the inaugural Global Table event last year.

Colenso BBDO promoted Maria Devereux to ECD. She re-joined Colenso BBDO in 2016, having spent several years at TAXI Canada, Y&R NZ and Special Group. In 2018, she led the team behind the agency’s second most awarded campaign ever, Pedigree SelfieSTIX. She will lead creative output on Mars, DB Breweries, Bank of New Zealand and IAG.

IPG Mediabrands appointed Matt Sallis as CEO of performance agency Reprise in Australia, replacing Grace Liu. Salis was previously managing director of accounts and performance at Reprise in Canada. He will begin the new role in April. Salis is an Australia native who grew up in New Zealand. Prior to his three years at Reprise Canada, he spent seven years at GroupM, also in Canada.

iProspect India announced that it will handle search engine optimization (SEO) for OTT platform ZEE5 on a global basis. The agency will work to increase viewership sessions on ZEE5 from organic search by driving fresh visitors to the platform via core, secondary and tangential themes. iProspect's Mumbai office will handle the account.

Publicis Groupe announced that MercerBell co-founder Nick Mercer will leave the experience agency and Publicis Groupe. He has served as chairman since 2018 and as head of data spine for Publicis Groupe ANZ since January 2019. Founded in 1999, MercerBell was acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi in 2016. Co-founder and ECD David Bell announced his departure from the agency last month. Mercer cited health issues and spending time with his family for his decision to leave now.