Move and win roundup: Week of October 26, 2020

Heineken has hired Sarah Backhouse as director of global communications. She will move to Amsterdam to oversee a 10-person team with leaders in sustainability, brand PR, corporate comms, digital channels and employee engagement Additionally, she will lead the development and execution of a medium- and long-term strategy for all external comms, including brand PR, employee engagement, strategic direction to senior management and other Heineken functions, internal comms, issues and crisis comms, stakeholder engagement, financial comms, talent management and budget management. She will report to Stacey Tank, chief corporate affairs and transformation officer. 

Digital marketing agency Croud has promoted Jamie Hoey to the role of managing director of its Australian business. Hoey joined Croud in 2018 as client strategy director. In his new role, he will report into global CEO Luke Smith and will be responsible for driving overall growth and development of the Australian business which includes sales, marketing, operations and client strategy.

Healthcare PR agency GCI Health has named Sophie Asker as managing director, Singapore and Dan Blomfield as managing director, medical communications, APAC. Asker joins with 15 years of health communications experience, predominately from Syneos Health in the UK, where she was deputy managing director of public relations. She will lead GCI Health’s Singapore based operations, including several local and regional client relationships. Blomfield, meanwhile, is a medical communications and education leader, and moves from his previous role of managing director, Singapore at GCI Health to take on a regionally focused remit to further grow the agency’s medical communications speciality offer.

WhiteGrey has been appointed by the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia (WWF-Australia) as its lead strategic and creative partner for its Regenerate Australia programme. The agency will be responsible for providing strategic and creative support to launch the “largest and most innovative wildlife and landscape regeneration programme in the nation’s history”. The aim of the programme is to save, protect, restore and future-proof unique wildlife and environments following the devastating 2019/20 fires. Work is to commence immediately and will be led by whiteGREY’s Melbourne office.

Tom Sharma will join Integral Ad Science (IAS) as chief product officer, to be based in New York. Sharma brings more than 20 years of experience building innovative digital media and advertising products. Most recently, he was SVP and head of product at Intersection where he led product, user experience design, engineering and technical operations. Prior to that, Sharma founded Impact Digital Media, providing product and technology consulting services to the world’s top media companies and studios. He has also held several leadership roles at NBCUniversal including vice president, emerging products, and was a founding team member for Hulu. He was the recipient of the Edison Award for the launch of Hulu’s video syndication product, recognised for product and technology excellence, customer impact, and organisational citizenship. In his new role, he will report to IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider. 

Muslim matchmaking app Hawaya has appointed Zeno Group as PR agency of record in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. According to the client, Zeno struck the right balance between a global perspective, while ensuring local nuances and cultural sensitivities are addressed for an impactful entry into the three markets. Zeno’s pitch featured an integrated, geo-centric approach that matched data and analytics with local insights. The agency will also offer influencer marketing and data-driven storytelling. 

Pharmaceutical and diagnostics maker Roche appointed Interpublic Group's Golin to lead its communications in Hong Kong and Macau, following a pitch. Golin will work to enhance the healthcare company’s internal, stakeholder and media communications activities. The agency also works with Roche in the US, UK and mainland China. In Hong Kong and Macau, the agency has been providing strategic guidance on change communications and employee engagement throughout a transformation process and now broadens that scope to external communications, assisting in activities such as strategic planning, thought leadership and media relations. Golin Hong Kong launched its Health & Wellness practice last year.

Ankhi Das, Facebook's Public Policy director for India, South and Central Asia, is leaving the company. She is leaving to pursue her interests in public service. While she was one of the earliest hires for Facebook in the region, having come aboard in 2011, Das was recently named in media reports that alleged interference in the firm's content moderation, favouring India's ruling Bhartiya Janata Party. The company and she denied this and said Das' departure was unrelated to these revelations. 

Adrian Jones has been named Cognizant's senior vice president and managing director for Asia Pacific and Japan. Before this, he was executive vice president for Asia Pacific and Japan at Automation Anywhere, a provider of automation solutions. Jones will join Cognizant effective November 2, based in Singapore. 

Sindhuja Rai has been promoted to take on the role of global media investment lead at Mondelez, in addition to her media and digital head role in the APAC and Middle East and Africa regions. She takes on the broader scope starting this month and will be working with teams across all markets globally and will continue to be based in Singapore.  

Bastion Collective, an Australian independent communications agency, launched Bastion Asia, a consultancy that helps Australian brands connect with and understand Asian communities, both in Australia and overseas. Bastion Asia is an evolution of the Bastion China offering in response to growing client demand, according to the company. The agency will continue to offer specialist China marketing services, including WeChat management, but will apply its lens to broader Asian communities and offer integrated services spanning the marketing gamut.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation appointed Leo Burnett Australia as its new creative agency, effective immediately. Leo Burnett is now tasked with the remit of helping households make the connection between addressing climate change and protecting the reef. The agency is currently working on a campaign that is due to launch in 2021.

The Hong Kong Football Club (HKFC) Rugby Section has appointed CSM Sport and Entertainment as its strategic partner and exclusive sponsorship agency. Working from its Asian Headquarters in Hong Kong, the sports marketing firm will assist the HKFC Rugby Section to develop and secure commercial partnerships, underpinning its efforts to promote sport within the community and further the development of elite rugby in Hong Kong.

Quantum Consumer Solutions appointed Sarah Kochling as partner in China. Her nearly 30-year career includes management roles at P&G China and J&J International, as well as building innovation and consulting practices for What If!?, Dragon Rouge and Shanghai Blossom Innovation.

Switching-Time, an independent communication agency focusing on fashion, beauty, luxury and lifestyle, appointed Adrian Peh Boon Wee as managing director in China. He was previously senior vice president at Weber Shandwick for 12 years. He will be based in Shanghai and will report to co-founder Taiwing Tian who will be able to focus full time to further develop the agency, as well as client and industry relationships. The agency boasts clients including Uniqlo, Crocs, Timberland and Moet Hennessy Group.

DeTour, an annual design festival in Hong Kong organised by PMQ, appointed Sutton Hong Kong
as its communications agency. The agency will handle all local and international media responsibilities,
provide digital strategies, and manage deTour’s social media platforms in the lead-up to and during its 2020 edition, slated for November 27 through December 6.

APCO Worldwide appointed Maria Nindita Radyati, a sustainability and corporate social responsibility expert with more than 30 years of experience, as part of its International Advisory Council (IAC). She is the founding director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Change, and Third Sector (CECT-USAKTI), a research centre under the postgraduate program at Trisakti University in Indonesia. In addition, she is the head of education in the Indonesian CSR Consortium, head of education for the Association of Risk Management Practitioners (ARMP) and researcher for the board of directors at the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) at John Hopkins University.

WPP is appointing Ya-Qin Zhang to its Board as a non-executive director with effect from 1 January 2021. A world-renowned technologist, scientist and entrepreneur, Zhang served as president of Baidu Inc, the global internet services and AI company headquartered in Beijing, between 2014 and 2019.  Prior to this, he held several key positions during a 16-year tenure with Microsoft in the US and in China, including corporate vice president, chairman of Microsoft China, managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, and chairman of Microsoft Asia R&D group.  Zhang was recently appointed chair professor of AI Science at Tsinghua University, China and is the founding Dean of the Institute for AI Industry Research at the same university.  He is also a Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a foreign fellow of Australia National Academy of Technology and Engineering.  Zhang currently serves on the board of Fortescue Metals and AsiaInfo Technologies.  

VMLY&R has been appointed by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) to support the development and execution of digital transformation strategy roadmaps with key tourism enterprises as part of ThreeHouse, a new co-innovation space where tourism businesses can collaborate, workshop and test new ideas. VMLY&R won the business via competitive tender. Slated to open in 2021, STB’s ThreeHouse houses a suite of tools and initiatives to support tourism enterprises which include STB Tech College, sessions involving design thinking workshops, community networking, technology showcases and more. VMLY&R began its work to support ThreeHouse’s transformation initiative in August, assisting the first batch of strategic enterprises, known as ‘lighthouse accounts.’ Each engagement starts off with a Tourism Transformation Index (TXI) assessment, a diagnostic tool developed by STB from which VMLY&R and STB then work with the stakeholders to develop a digital transformation strategy and roadmap.    

Wavemaker announces the appointment of Ali Khan-Bajauri as managing director in Pakistan. Khan-Bajauri has had a career spanning 25 years at B2B and B2C businesses across North America, Europe and Asia serving brands such as Nestlé, Engro Corp, Mars and Maple Leaf Foods Canada. In his new role, Khan-Bajauri will ensure that Wavemaker’s strategy is aligned with the global network as well as lead the migration of Maxus Pakistan to Wavemaker. Maxus was merged with MEC in 2017 to form Wavemaker Pakistan.

Redhill has been appointed as PR agency of record for LHN Group, a real estate management services group. The agency will provide PR support to the group’s business which includes its space optimisation business segment that focuses on transforming unused, old, and underutilised spaces of commercial, residential, and industrial properties to maximise the leasable area and rental yield of the properties as it expands its business portfolio offerings in Singapore, Hong Kong and ASEAN.