Move and win roundup: Week of November 22, 2021

Allison+Partners named Adeline Goh as general manager of its Singapore office. She has close to 20 years of experience in senior communications roles and joins from Edelman Singapore, where she was a managing director. She has also held senior roles at Burson Cohn & Wolfe, Klareco (formerly Bell Pottinger Asia) and Ketchum Singapore. Earlier in her career she had a decade of editorial experience at Mediacorp and Singapore Press Holdings.

Havas Media Group China appointed Liting Spalding as managing partner and head of performance, based in Shanghai. She will lead the performance marketing, data and ecommerce teams. She was previously with Havas Media in London, as head of audience planning and programmatic.

Wunderman Thompson China appointed Jacqueline Wu as managing partner of production and operations in China and Edna Deng as general manager of the agency's Beijing office. Wu previously spent nine years with McCann China as managing director of its subsidiary, Craft China. She has worked with major clients such as L’Oréal, KFC, Volkswagen, General Motors, Coca-Cola/Sprite, Puncheon, Citizen, Godiva and so on. Deng has 14 years of experience with agencies including Publicis, Ogilvy, J Walter Thompson, McCann and Jung von Matt. She has worked with brands such as Nestle China, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler, ThinkPad, Cadbury, Merck Serono, Pfizer, Nokia and Microsoft. 

Essence announced a partnership with Google and the Guardian Australia that uses machine learning to evaluate thousands of articles on the Guardian’s website in order to deliver contextually relevant ads without relying on cookies or personal identifiers. The system features automated production of hundreds of ads customised for contextual relevance on individual article pages. The approach, already in use in the US and UK, launched in Australia with a Google Nest campaign.

Wavemaker Indonesia has appointed former CEO of Hakuhodo Digital Vietnam Emmanuel James 'EJ' Mangahas as its new partner in Client Leadership. In his new role, Mangahas, who was on Campaign's 40 Under 40 listing this year, will be responsible for leading and managing the Danone account. Since joining Hakuhodo in 2017, Manghas built the digital team from scratch to 45, covering in-house digital functions: accounts, creatives, digital media, social, and digital planning.

GrowthOps Asia has made strategic appointments to strengthen its teams in the Southeast Asia region. David Isaac Mathews has been promoted to chief growth officer for the region, and in his place, Shaad Hamid was named general manager of the Singapore agency. GrowthOps has also appointed Chris Greenough as general manager of Malaysia. Between Singapore and Malaysia, Hamid and Greenough oversee a diverse team of some 200 professionals, in technology, user experience, creative, consulting, and marketing roles.  

Edelman China has augmented its capabilities in the health & wellness space, bringing onboard two senior specialists to lead the firm’s offerings for clients operating in the healthcare, sports and lifestyle sectors. Laura Zhou joins Edelman from McCann Health as vice president of Healthcare, while Chris Leung has been named the firm’s new senior vice president of Lifestyle & Sports Marketing. He joins from Entourage Sports & Entertainment. 

Jaywing has been appointed by digital payments platform, Instarem, to manage its performance marketing globally, including Australia, UK, US, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and India. Jaywing started working with Singapore-headquated Instarem in 2015 for paid media. Its remit has been expanded to include paid search, paid social, display and conversion rate optimisation across over 20 countries.

UM has been named media agency of record in Malaysia for Foodpanda, an on-demand delivery platform. The agency's remit will encompass media duties including strategy, planning, buying, research, and data and analytics. The news comes following a competitive pitch review which commenced in September this year. The appointment will commence the first week of December. 

BCW has been named Singapore PR agency partner by Scoot. The low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, awarded its first post-pandemic corporate communications retainer to BCW Singapore following a closed-door competitive presentation process. BCW will work with Scoot to raise awareness of the brand and reputation in the market, along with the safe and gradual resumption of international air travel. 

Zip Business, a division of buy now, pay later venture Zip Co, has appointed consultancy Mindbox, to drive digital advertising and engagement, and the management of its associated data. Mindbox will employ digital advertising and retargeting tools to reach current and future clients.

Host/Havas has appointed Henry Kember as group creative director. With 15 years’ experience Kember has worked most recently at Droga5 New York, as creative director. As group CD, Kember will be oversee projects across the Host/Havas client portfolio including Air New Zealand, NBA, Reckitt, Stockland and the Palau Legacy Project.

Green Park Content promoted Fe Husaint, formerly creative and brand strategy director, to creative and global brand head. She will be overseeing a 45-person integrated creative production team that includes social, creative, production and post-production units. Husaint, a member of Campaign Asia-Pacific's Women to Watch 2021, will be the youngest group partner globally. GPC also promoted Que Ramli from social media lead for APAC to global social media lead and Martin Niens, formally head of client services, to head of operations. In addition the agency made a series of recent appointments: Crissy Ancheta as APAC head of client services, Regine Mercado as group account director for Unilever, Elaine Giam as senior account director based in Malaysia, Matt Yu as head of design, Trina Enriquez as copy lead, Renzo Virey as a senior art director, Mirza Afiq Beg as regional social-media lead, and Lily Wong as managing editor for Malaysia and Jordana Maia Blanco as managing editor.

The Gerety Awards, the only creative prize to reward the best in advertising from a female perspective has announced its Grand Jury for 2022, which include six women from APAC, namely: Jung A Kim, worldwide executive creative director at Innocean based in Korea; Jean Lin, global CEO of Creative at Dentsu International based in China; Tara Ford, chief creative officer at The Monkeys in Australia; Phannika Vongsayan, co-founder and managing director at Wolf BKK in Thailand; Maria Devereux, executive creative director at Colenso BBDO based in New Zealand; and Veronica Phua, brand ambassador at Burpple based in Singapore. The full jury will be announced in January. Entrants are invited to visit the Gerety website for more or download the 2022 entry kit. 

IPG Mediabrands agency Initiative Australia appointed Erin Jakubans as chief people officer, replacing Scott Laird (see item above). Jakubans was most recently head of HR in the UAE for Baker McKenzie, based in Dubai. Prior to that she has held senior HR leadership roles at GroupM and Omnicom Media Group. She will report to CEO Melissa Fein and starts her new role on February 1.

The Works, part of Capgemini, appointed Julie Dormand on a contract basis as managing partner. She will lead agency operations, people and key clients, as well as drive 2022 business
initiatives, because both Jasmine Lansdell, general manager for people and operations, and Kristie Thistelthwaite, managing partner, are set to go on maternity leave in December. In addition, creative project leader Jen Hird has been promoted to head of project management. Dormand will report to founder and creative partner Damian Pincus and work alongside partner Douglas Nicol, creative partner Iggy Rodriguez and managing partner Ruth Haffenden, who returns from maternity leave.