Move and win roundup: Week of October 7, 2019

TBWA Singapore appointed Andy Grant as executive creative director. Having spent the last six years in the US working for BBH LA, Iris New York, Droga 5 New York and CP +B Los Angeles, he is returning to Singapore, where he was associate creative director at BBH Singapore from 2011 to 2013.

Sydney Fish Market appointed independent agency DEC PR to manage its public relations, following a competitive tender process. DEC PR commences work immediately.

Digital agency Tommy hired Larry Lim as APAC creative director at its regional hub in Singapore. Lim has more than 10 years of experience in Singapore and Hong Kong with TribalDDB, SapientRazorFish and most recently Cheil, where he was creative group head. He will report to Singapore managing director Guo-You Chew. 

CHE Proximity appointed former BMF group strategy director David Warren as director of brand. He has 17 years of planning experience including at DDB London.

Essence has appointed Benjamin Wei to lead its China operations as it officially launches in the market. Wei will lead local operations across the agency's two new offices in Beijing and Shanghai. He has been working at Essence’s parent GroupM for the last nine years, most recently managing director of mobile.

Klareco Communications has appointed Paypal's former APAC head of communications Yvonne Koh and the ex-head of Cognito Singapore Prisita Menon as senior directors. Koh joins with more than two decades of experience in campaigns and communications. Along with her Paypal role, she was formerly the managing director of Southeast Asia at MSL Singapore, and SVP of MSL’s New York office. Prior to Cognito, Menon was at the Ministry of Manpower for four years where she worked on inter-governmental initiatives and worked closely with advertising agencies to drive awareness campaigns. Both will undergo a formal partner appointment process, with a view to providing insight-driven communications counsel and reputation management for in-country, regional and international remits.

Lucinda Barlow has been named APAC senior director of marketing at Uber, responsible for marketing products and businesses (excluding Eats) across Asia-Pacific. Barlow joins most recently from leading product marketing at YouTube where she introduced new tools and experiences to viewers and creators, built YouTube’s responsibility marketing function, launched YouTube’s first slate of ad-supported original shows, and scaled the Culture & Trends operation globally. Barlow brings over 20 years experience in internet, technology and mobile business across Asia, the US and UK. 

Southeast Asian streaming service Iflix has appointed industry veteran Kevin Liu as its chief technology officer of ads. In this role he will spearhead the company's programmatic strategy and lead an engineering team specifically dedicated to its advertising business. Prior to iflix, Liu led product architecture and SSP products at SSP FreeWheel, which is a partner of Iflix.

VaynerMedia Singapore has hired VJ Anand to be the agency's executive creative director, SVP. Anand was most recently SVP of creative at Gojek, where he built and spearheaded creative, social media, digital, events, activation and in-app content for the brand. Prior to this, Anand was executive creative director at BBDO Malaysia and TBWA Malaysia. Anand assumes his role at VaynerMedia Singapore in November, 2019.

Jeff Astle has joined advisory and advocacy communications consultancy APCO Worldwide as managing director, Shanghai. Astle joins APCO from the China-Britain Business Council, where he served as managing director, China. Astle has nearly two decades of experience in the Asia-Pacific region.

Grey Group Indonesia has been awarded the re-branding campaign for movie theatre chain Cinemaxx with 56 cinemas in operation to brand name Cinépolis. Six agencies were involved in the pitch that lasted 4 weeks. Grey partnered with other WPP agencies, Mediacom and BCW for Media and PR  solutions.

Gojek has appointed former NASA engineer George Do as its chief information security officer (CISO), where he will be responsible for the security of the company, including its portfolio of apps, products and services, as well as overall information security strategy and management of governance, risk and compliance. Do is a seasoned cyber security executive, and was most recently CISO at real estate investment trust Equinix. Prior to this he held security leadership roles at several tech companies including CenturyLink, TiVo, Exodus and Savvis, and worked as an information security engineer at Nasa, where he protected government information assets. At Gojek he reports to chief technology officer Ajey Gore and is based in Singapore.

Digital agency Toaster has hired the former head of strategy at Dentsu Singapore, Udara Withana, in the same role. As head of strategy APAC, a newly created role for the agency, Withana will take up major responsibilities across the agency’s client portfolio, including work for Google, Unilever and other local and regional business at the agency. He will work at the agency's regional headquarters in Singapore.

AnalogFolk has appointed Stephen Pill as its strategy director for Asia. Pill joins the digital agency after eight years at WPP's Fitch where he created digital experiences for international clients such as The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai Airports and Swire Properties.

Weber Shandwick Singapore has employed Hin-Yan Wong as its senior vice president of planning and analytics, where he will focus on building the insights offering within the comms agency. Wong has a history of developing research programmes to drive brand, marketing and e-commerce strategy development. Most recently he was chief marketing officer for clean energy and social impact startup One Earth Designs. Prior to this he devised and delivered a programme that transformed the communications capability of the UK Ministry of Defence. He will report to Weber Shandwick Singapore managing director and chair, client services, Asia Pacific, Vanessa Ho Nikolovski.

After a competitive pitch, Wunderman Thompson Melbourne has been appointed by the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) to develop a three-year campaign to drive long-term change in the awareness, attitudes and behaviour of Victorians in relation to fire. The agency will be responsible for the creation of a campaign platform to prompt all Victorians to be better prepared for the threat of bushfire and grassfire this coming summer.