Move and win roundup: Week of December 11, 2023

Universal Music Greater China (UMGC), a division of Universal Music Group (UMG), has appointed seasoned industry professional Ming Lu as vice president of artist development and entertainment strategy, effective immediately. Based in Beijing, he will report directly to Timothy Xu, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Greater China. He joins UMGC from Warner Music, where he most recently served as senior director, responsible for Chinese artist management and intellectual property development. 

Auror, the retail crime reporting platform, has appointed challenger communications agency Sling & Stone across Australia and New Zealand. The partnership will see Sling & Stone continue to build on Auror’s trusted brand, focusing awareness across the retail sector as well as law enforcement and government stakeholders across both countries. This will be achieved with a mix of strategic media relations, data storytelling, founder profiling and employer brand work. With more than $150 billion lost every year to retail crime, Auror was developed as a way to equip retailers with safe and secure solutions to report, solve, and stop crime occurring in stores and create safer communities.

Amanda Chan has joined Foodpanda as head of communications and public relations in Hong Kong. Before Foodpanda, Chan was previously Oatly’s marketing and communications lead in Asia for five years. Chan reports to Ryan Lai, CEO of Foodpanda Hong Kong. She also served various senior PR roles at McDonald's and Hong Kong Maxim's Group after leaving Hill & Knowlton.

Citra Marina has been promoted to marketing lead for Southeast Asia at Spotify. Marina was most recently regional marketing manager for SEA and spent a decade in Unilever before joining Spotify in August 2022. 

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) has hired Lee Williamson from Tatler Asia to become its executive director of specialist publications (SP). Williamson was the founding editor and regional head of Tatler Gen.T, a community-focused content platform for impact-driven young leaders in Asia. Based in Hong Kong, Williamson will set the direction for the Post’s lifestyle content division and spearhead growth for titles including Style, 100 Top Tables, and XXIV. Celine Asril has joined the SCMP as strategy director of Morning Studio (MS) to lead its ideation hub and work with the business team. Asril rejoins the Post from Finn Partners in SG and was previously a content strategist with Morning Studio and TBWA. She will continue to be based in Singapore. 

Virtue Worldwide has appointed Ayushi Saria as associate creative director in India. Before joining Virtue, Saria dedicated her talents to illustration, where she focused on projects centered around skin and body positivity at Publicis New York. 

Full service agency, Apparent, has appointed Jason Hill into the newly created role of chief strategy officer based in Sydney. He joins after more than eight years at Ogilvy Singapore where he was chief strategy officer.  

Alt+ Group has appointed Brenden Arnold as chief executive officer to oversee its brands like Alt.vfx, Steelbridge Studio, T&DA, New Holland and LIDAR Guys. Arnold has spent more than two decades years growing businesses like IPG-owned McCann and WPP-owned Bates across Australia, APAC and North Asia, before taking on C-suite roles at Salesforce and TotallyAwesome. 

Southern Cross Health Insurance has promoted Regan Savage to chief sales and marketing officer. Savage joined Southern Cross three years ago as head of Marketing, following senior leadership roles at Trade Me and Kiwibank, and overseeing the Unite Against Covid-19 public engagement programme. 

Digital consultancy G Squared has been appointed by leading online marketplace Gumtree, to drive search and deliver improved customer experiences across the platform. Gumtree appointed G Squared following a multi-agency pitch, with the Sydney-based independent tasked with managing search engine optimisation through organic search, as well as identifying opportunities across key verticals to grow site traffic and conversions. 

Aalap Desai, the former chief creative officer of Dentsu Creative West and Dentsu Creative Experience India, has launched a new full-funnel agency, Tgthr (Together). As founder and CCO of the new agency, Desai will lead his team from Dentsu Creative and amplify the agency's impact as a ‘force multiplier.’

• Anadi Sah serves as national creative director, chief innovation officer and founding partner. Before joining Tgthr, he was the group ECD Denstu Creative, India, and was previously at Isobar for 13 years and had established it as a creative powerhouse in India.
• Vibhor Yadav, who has been working at Isobar for 10 years and most recently served as Indian ECD, joins the new agency as a regional creative officer - North and South, and founding partner. 
• Pragati Rana now works as regional creative officer, West, head of originals and founding partner at Tgthr. She was ECD of Dentsu Creative India, who joined Dentsu in 2017.
• Anirudh Venugopal joins the new agency as senior creative director, head of culture and founding partner. He was creative group head at Dentsu Creative India, who started as a young copy editor at Dentsu Webchutney.