Move and win roundup: Week of March 20, 2023

Elmwood, global brand design consultancy, has appointed Jackson Ong as strategy director for its Singapore studio. In his new role, Ong will drive Elmwood Singapore’s strategy offer across its global and regional portfolio of clients and report to Elmwood’s Singapore managing director, Celeste Cheong. Before Elmwood, Ong was a senior strategist at agencies including Superunion and Cowan. He brings almost a decade of experience in FMCG giants such as Coca-Cola, Danone and Shiseido; local icons like Julie’s, MyRepublic and EZ-Link; as well as tech disruptors like Lazada, Garena and Trust Bank. 

InMobi has appointed Aditya Varadarajan as the regional head for its newly expanded partnership with Microsoft Advertising in Southeast Asia. Aditya will be based in Singapore and will be expanding the regional sales team across key markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Leading the Microsoft Advertising business across India and Southeast Asia at InMobi, he has over 10 years of experience in handling account management, digital marketing, affiliate marketing, and data analysis. 

Lexus Australia appointed a long-standing partner, Havas Blvd, to lead the luxury lifestyle brand’s consumer and lifestyle public relations remit. Havas Blvd will manage Lexus ambassadors and friends of the brand, media relations, vehicle launches and loan program, and the leveraging of Lexus Australia’s sponsorship portfolio. The partnership expands on the agency’s existing product PR scope.

Initiative has retained the Pernod Ricard Australia and New Zealand media account following a competitive pitch. The agency will work across the entire brand portfolio, including Pernod’s wine, spirit, whiskey, champagne, RTD and ‘new to world’ brands, as the new contract commences in July 2023. Initiative has been working with the brand since 2019 and helped propel Pernod Ricard Australia and New Zealand further into culture.

MX Player, an Indian OTT platform, has announced Nikhil Gandhi’s exit as chief operating officer (COO) to pursue other interests. Gandhi was appointed to COO in August 2021, in line with the company’s strategy to drive growth and efficiency.

Wunderman Thompson North America has appointed Emily Chang to lead its West Coast offices, including LA, Seattle, and the Swift boutique agency in Portland. Chang has spent nearly a decade in APAC, most recently as the CEO of McCann Worldgroup, China, leading four agency brands located in three offices. Chang has also built her career on the brand side in China as CMO of Starbucks China, chief commercial officer for InterContinental Hotels Group, Greater China, and was the first executive in China for Apple Retail. McCann Worldgroup China confirmed with Campaign in February about Chang’s exit, as she returned to the US for family reasons.  

Quantcast has appointed Sonal Patel as its new managing director for Asia-Pacific to oversee Australia, New Zealand and all of Asia. Daniel O’Connor has also been appointed as the commercial director for ANZ at Quantcast and Rueben Vijaratnam joins as sales director for Southeast Asia. With over 20 years of experience in the tech and media industries, Patel has worked with Expedia in business development, AppNexus (now Xandr), Yahoo, Salesforce, Twitter Exchange, Google, and Dentsu. She also held Industry roles, including Chair of the IAB Southeast Asia and India. Quantcast’s appointments follow the promotion of incumbent APAC vice president Andrew Double to vice president – US Sales at Quantcast, based in New York.

Tata Consultancy Services has named K. Krithivasan as the CEO designate with effect from 16 March 2023. Krithivasan will go through a transition with Rajesh Gopinathan and will be appointed as the managing director & CEO in the next financial year. Gopinathan has decided to step down from the company to pursue his other interests. Gopinathan will continue with the company till 15 September 2023 to provide transition and support to his successor.  

Host/Havas has promoted Ant Moore from managing partner to the newly created role of managing director. Moore will continue to be hands on with clients including Reckitt, Tourism Fiji, and the Australian Federal Police, whilst expanding his responsibilities more broadly for the agency.

OMD Australia has promoted Marelle Salib and Alison Costello to chief investment officer and chief transformation officer respectively. Both will join OMD’s national executive team. Costello was previously national head of digital and Salib national head of investment. Jane Combes has been promoted to national head of strategic investment and partnerships, Nicholas Chin has been promoted to national head of performance and campaign operations to lead this offering, Taylor Svarc has been promoted to group head of transformation, Melbourne and Brisbane and Tom Kirkham to head of transformation, Sydney.

Saatchi & Saatchi’s Simon Bagnasco and Alex Speakman have joined independent agency Bullfrog as partners. Speakman was previously the chief strategy officer and Bagnasco was previously national head of creativity.

Entertainment platform Shemaroo has announced Arpit Mankar has been appointed as head of non-Bollywood category and Abhishek Joshi will be head of ShemarooMe, the OTT platform of Shemaroo. Mankar will be responsible for developing an overarching content strategy for various regions in India and abroad. In his last stint at Disney Star, he served in key positions including head of programming strategy for Star Plus and general manager ofStar Bharat. Joshi as head of ShemarooMe will be overseeing the strategy, planning and operations of the platform. He will be responsible for driving revenue, subscriber acquisition and will be leading a team of cross-functional executives to maximize growth. In his last role, Joshi was the business head of SVOD and head of business partnerships at MX Player.

Stockbroking firm Malacca Securities has appointed Jo Yau as chief marketing officer. Yau joins from RinggitPlus, where she similarly held the role of CMO. In her new role, Yau will seek to innovate and drive forward current approaches to be more focused and integrated.

Eleven International has promoted Seona Choi to senior marketing strategist.

FCB New Zealand has unveiled a new leadership structure for its Auckland and Wellington operations. Paul Wilson has been appointed as CEO of FCB Auckland and Sean Keaney gets promoted to CEO of FCB Wellington. The agency’s new co-CEOs will report directly to FCB global CEO Tyler Turnbull and FCB global chair and global CCO Susan Credle. Wilson brings over two decades’ of experience in the region and has worked across brands like Toyota, Fonterra, Instant Kiwi, Heineken and BNZ. Before joining FCB, he was managing director of TBWA New Zealand, and prior to that, with Saatchi & Saatchi. Meanwhile, Keaney joined FCB in 2015 as general manager. His previous role was managing director of FCB Wellington. The two new CEOs will work in tandem with Leisa Wall and Peter Vegas, the agency’s first co-chief creative officers, media CEO Blair Alexander, chief transformation officer, FCB Six lead Qassem Naim, and director of philosophy Vivien Sutherland Bridgwater to work on growth plans in the region. The new CEOs appointment announced as former CEO of FCB New Zealand Sébastien Desclée departs. 

Havas Group has promoted Janet Zhang to Greater China chief human resources officer. Zhang was China chief human resources officer, who joined the agency in late 2021, bringing over 20 years of experience in human resources. Extending her remit, she will be responsible for human resources management in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Sandpiper has announced a string of new leadership appointments for its technology practice across Asia Pacific.

• Mark Johnson has come on board as APAC tech communications and public affairs lead. Johnson joins with over 18 years of experience in communications, public affairs, and public policy, before joining Sandpiper, Johnson spent three years advising fast-growing scale-up companies across the region. 
• Hetty Musfirah, another industry veteran with over 15 years of experience in media, communications, and public affairs, Musfirah has been promoted to lead Southeast Asia technology practice. 
• Meanwhile, Rong Li will lead the Greater China technology practice. Prior to Sandpiper, she was PR director for a Chinese B2B software firm.

Nissan has promoted Isao Sekiguchi to president of Nissan in ASEAN, effective from 1 April, 2023. He will oversee Nissan’s operations in the ASEAN region for the Japanese automaker's business performance and brand development in 22 markets, and continue his role as president of Nissan Motor Thailand, reporting to Junichi Endo, senior vice president of marketing and sales Japan-ASEAN of Nissan Motor. With more than 20 years of diverse international experience in the automotive sector, Sekiguchi joined Nissan in 2014. Currently, he is regional vice president, marketing and sales, for Nissan's ASEAN region and president of Nissan Motor Thailand.

InsideOut PR wins Colgate-Palmolive account following a competitive pitch. The Sydney agency will undertake media publicity, influencer and activations campaigns and work closely with the existing marketing team and agencies.

Merlin Entertainments, a location-based family entertainment operator with presence in over 24 countries has appointed digital marketing agency, Tug Sydney for all its ANZ attractions. This includes Madame Tussauds, Sydney Tower Eye, Lego Discovery Centre and Sea Life Melbourne, Sunshine Coast and Auckland. As a part of the partnership, Tug Sydney will be tasked to increase share of voice and audience traffic for all of Merlin Entertainments attractions through free, organic, editorial and natural search results.