Move and win roundup: Week of October 12, 2020

Manulife has appointed Julie Nestor as its new chief marketing and experience design officer in Asia, effective today. (Full story) 

McCann Worldgroup China appointed Wu Shu as general manager, to lead the business teams of both McCann Shanghai and McCann Guangzhou. She joins from Blue Focus, where she was GM of Blue Focus Shanghai’s brand center. She has 18 years of professional experience overall across advertising, communication and marketing, having led communication and marketing teams that span content development, corporate/brand communication, social, digital marketing, KOL/influencer strategy and e-commerce.

Communications agency Citrine One rebranded as Citrine One Malaysia as part of the agency’s intent to position Citrine One as a group of companies and identify Citrine One Malaysia, which will now focus on deliverables within Malaysia only, as a separate entity from Citrine One Global (COG), an agency that offers cross-border communications management and services globally. Leading Citrine One Malaysia is Cynthia Lee who has been appointed as acting managing director. She joined as an associate partner in mid-2019 and became a full-time managing partner in January 2020. Meanwhile, managing partner Sharves Bala, who has been with the agency for 13 years, will now take on the role of employee relations director for Citrine One Group.

Dabur Honey has awarded its creative communication mandate to Havas Creative. As part of the mandate, Havas will handle the creative duties for Dabur Honey and all its brand extensions. The agency has kickstarted its contract with a TVC – ‘Not every honey brand has the right to be called honey.’

Media intelligence company Isentia appointed Pooja Chugh as account management director for Southeast Asia.

Ogilvy named a new team of executive creative directors in Thailand, promoting Gumpon Laksanajinda and Prasert Vijitpawan to join existing ECDs Torpun Lersin and Andrew Chu. Collectively, the quartet has experience across industries including FMCG, food, retail, automotive, banking, telecom, property and energy.

Carat ANZ hired Lauren Small as managing director of Carat Sydney and appointed Chris Ernst as managing director of Carat Melbourne. Small spent the last nine years with Publicis Groupe, starting with Starcom Mediavest as client business manager and ending with three years as general manager of Spark Foundry. Ernst in the last 12 months headed up the Dentsu offering in Queensland, including re-integrating Amplifi into Carat and connecting Carat, iProspect and Haystac in the market. 

GoPro appointed Go Communications for public relations and communications initiatives in Malaysia. The agency has already worked on promoting products and initiatives, including the recent launch of the newly introduced GoPro Hero9 Black.

Harman, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics focused on connected technologies for the automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, awarded its integrated creative and media communication mandate to Havas Creative India. The remit covers the company's consumer brands JBL and Harman Kardon, and the agency will be responsible for the integrated creative, digital strategy, and overall media buying and planning for both offline and online. Last year, the agency won the mandate for Harman's Infinity brand, so this win, which came following a multi-agency pitch, means Havas now boasts all of Harman's brands.

Design Bridge promoted Tim Perkins from deputy group chairman to group chairman. He will pass his previous responsibilities as group business development director to Kasia Bannon, who the agency is promoting from senior vice president and managing partner of Design Bridge New York to group executive vice president. Perkins joined Design Bridge London in 1994, and worked with clients in Asia before establishing the agency’s third Studio in Singapore. Bannon will continue to lead the New York Studio, but will also take responsibility for global new business strategy. She has been with the company since 2009. 

Animation production company Final Frontier officially opened an office in Singapore, led by newly hired executive producer Ryan Shanholtzer. The company reports that it has already executed jobs for agencies including R/GA, The Secret Little Agency, VML and Facebook Creative Shop for clients including DBS, DASH, Sephora and CIMB Bank. Shanholtzer's career includes stints at Wieden + Kennedy Portland, Droga5, Publicis in Seattle and most recently 72andSunny in Singapore, where he produced work for clients such as Nike, Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, Dodge and Toyota. Final Frontier is headquartered in Shanghai, has a back office and studio in Buenos Aires and has operations in Madrid through sister-company Le Cube. It also operates in the US and LATAM in alliance with film production company Landia.  

Club Med appointed Vincent Ong as senior vice-president for commercial in Southeast Asia and for marketing in Asia Pacific, effective October 1. He joined in 2016 as vice president of marketing for East South Asia Pacific and extended his scope in 2019 to cover marketing for all of Asia Pacific. Prior to Club Med, he spent 14 years at Starwood Hotels & Resorts in APAC brand management, marketing and operational quality roles, which followed a tenure with Accenture. Ong is based in Singapore. 

WPP AUNZ announced the retirement of John Steedman, its executive director and chief operating officer. (Full story)

Brand-experience agency Uniplan appointed Claire Chong as managing director in Shanghai. She was previously GM at Pico Shanghai, and has also held roles at TBA Creative Network, George P Johnson, TBWA and TBWA Hakuhodo. Chong will report to Greater China CEO Geraldine Chew and work closely with China COO Tracy Zhou and office heads across the region.

Essence, part of GroupM, won integrated media agency of record duties for jewellery brand Melorra in India. The account will be led out of Bengaluru, and the scope of work includes media planning, media activation and content innovation.

Lauren Myers-Cavanagh, former director of special projects at Edelman, has joined Twitter as its new head of policy communications for APAC, based in Singapore. (Full story)