Move and win roundup: Week of October 10, 2022

COCO Public Relations (COCO PR) has been appointed as the official PR Agency of Saudi Arabian Airlines (SAUDIA Airlines). The agency has been tasked with building media relations for the brand in Singapore, and liaising with PR agencies across their markets in Malaysia, China, South Korea, and Indonesia to provide communications management support for SAUDIA Airlines.

Siemens India has appointed MSL India as its new PR agency.

Initiative has appointed Niranjan Singh as head of communications design for APAC. Singh joins from his previous role at Mediacom Indonesia where he was the Head of AOR leading the P&G business for three years. Prior to that, he spent six years at GroupM. In his new role, Singh will champion the application of best-practice approaches, techniques and solutions for modern experience design, and drive the connected communications design practice across Initiative APAC.  

GrowthOps Asia has appointed Adzam Bahrin as its regional creative director,. In this new role, he will lead the creative direction for Malaysia and Singapore, working on brands including Kia, Grab and RHB. Bahrin brings with him 12 years of experience, most recently as creative director of Naga DDB Tribal. He has also worked at VMLY&R Malaysia, M&C Saatchi Malaysia, GSW New York, Leo Burnett Malaysia, and Ogilvy New York. 

Scope3 is expanding into Australia, where it will build a strategic hub for product development and collaborative go-to-market teams serving Australia and the broader JAPAC region. Sydney-based June Cheung has been appointed as head of JAPAC and will lead the company’s expansion and strategic partnerships in the region.

Host/Havas has promoted Alyce Gillis to the newly created role of head of strategy, where she will lead the large and growing department of strategists across creative, brand, social, CX, and data. Gillis has been with Host/Havas for four years and prior to that, she led strategy at One Green Bean (part of Havas Creative Group). 

BMF has made four new appointments: Hannah McHard as head of effectiveness; Phoebe Carden as content and social strategist; and Alister McCann and Joe Mallett as senior creatives. 

MSL India has been appointed as the PR and communications agency for Siemens India. 

Wunderman Thompson has welcomed a batch of new hires and announced promotions in both its Melbourne and Sydney offices:

• Stephanie Gwee joins Wunderman Thompson’s Melbourne office as associate creative director from BBH in Singapore, where she spent the past 6.5 years launching global campaigns for brands like Absolut and Nike. She was also the global creative lead on Mulberry.
• Adriana Agustin-Radelja and Sarah Fumo join as a junior team, Grace Hurley, whose experience includes a graphic designer stint with Puma in New York, as junior art director. Rhys Delios Callanan transitions from editor/creator into the creative team,
• Over in Sydney, Dean Shein has also joined as copywriter, having recently achieved second place at the New South Wales AWARD School. He’ll be teaming-up with Julian Batty, who transitions from design into an art-director role.
• Another recent addition is creative director Joe Hawkins, who transfers from the Perth office after helping lead the team to last year’s dominant performance at the PADC awards, picking up 15 trophies, including Best of Show and 3 golds.

Gay Games Hong Kong has appointed RFI Asia as its official marketing and public relations agency for Gay Games 11 Hong Kong 2023 (GGHK). RFI Asia will oversee all aspects of communications for the GGHK, including branding, social media, internal communications and media relations.

Amplify has appointed Jackson Holst as creative director while Ian Davidson has come on board as business director. Holst and Davidson have close to 30 years’ experience between them having worked at agencies and brands both in Australia  and overseas including Weber Shandwick, Jack Morton, INNOCEAN, Havas Sports & Entertainment, and Red Bull. 

Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR) has announced the appointment of Kelvin Leong as its executive creative director. Based in Shanghai, Leong will partner with global chief creative officer Tosh Hall, China CCO René Chen, and China chief executive officer Jacquelien Postigo Brussee, to lead the creative performance and reputation of JKR Shanghai. Leong brings in 22 years of experience overseeing client work for companies and brands such as Coca-Cola, Mars Wrigley, P&G, Unilever.

Sandpiper has appointed Rob van Alphen as director of strategy and innovation. Van Alphen will work with clients focused on building and leveraging digital reputation capital in the customer journey and putting customer-centric thinking at the heart of their communications approach. He has experience with helping B2B and B2C businesses in Europe, the Middle East, and the US move to more relevant and effective customer experiences to drive bottom line results.

Sefiani has launched its new employee communications practice under Therese Raft. Sefiani’s employee communications practice will focus on internal communications storytelling to help organisations engage both existing and potential employees through a range of communications strategies. 

GroupM’s Wasiq Kidwai has joined Lemma as director of sales and business development for Australia. He joins Lemma with the brief to bring in a shift of digital spends towards programmatic digital out-of-the-home as part of the mainstream ecosystem. In his new role, Kidwai will be responsible for expanding Lemma’s regional business through strategic agency and brand partnerships while also building the local team and onboarding new screen partners across AU. In his most recent stint with GroupM India, he was responsible for trading and investment, where he has closely worked with media, adtech and data partners.  

Kaizzen has appointed Gayatri Ramanathan as senior director for ESG and sustainability. Kaizzen’s ESG and sustainability practice will offer clients strategic advisory on ESG and sustainability and reporting, ESG training as well as CSR related advisory services. Ramanathan brings with her over a decade of experience in the field of sustainability, climate and energy and over 20 years of experience as a journalist. Before joining Kaizzen, she worked with Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, in programmatic, donor engagement and fund-raising roles. She also worked with the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission in a regulatory role.

Mutant has appointed Tanya Tresnasari to launch and scale the agency in Indonesia. As country manager, Tresnasari will lead, run and deliver strategic and results-driven campaigns across PR, content, social media and branding. Tresnasari, who was previously double hatting as general manager at Golin Jakarta and Weber Shandwick Indonesia, brings more than 20 years of experience in the communications industry, spanning advertising, activation and public relations. 

Ogilvy Consulting has announced the appointment in Asia of Chris Brewer as president of business transformation and innovation and Paolo Mercado as president of brand transformation and innovation in Asia. Jerry Smith, who currently holds the position of chief executive of Ogilvy Consulting Asia, announced his retirement at the end of the year and will continue to work for the company in an advisory capacity.  The new dual leadership structure is intended to bring focus to two, large and vital practice areas that Ogilvy will be accelerating in the coming months. 

Elmwood has made a number of hires in Rachel Goh, Lisa Balm and Kedar Karippail. Goh joins to take on the newly created role of head of insights, where she will be responsible for helping brands craft compelling stories and produce more culturally relevant work. She was previously a partner at Innate Motion. For Balm, this is her second spell at Elmwood, having previously worked at the agency between 2012 and 2014. She joins the agency from Innovation Kitchen, where she held an equivalent role. Karippail has over 20 years international brand and advertising experience working for DDB, Geometry Global, Ogilvy & Mather and Y&R amongst others. He will develop the agency’s overall growth and client strategy, building and maintaining relationships and working closely with Elmwood’s parent company, MSQ.