Move and win roundup: Week of August 21, 2023

TBWA Hong Kong has promoted key members of the leadership team to accelerate its creative experience transformation to remain at the forefront of market changes and the growing needs of clients.

• Jerome Ooi, executive creative director, steps into the newly created chief creative experience officer role for the agency
• Jan Lee,  business director, has been named general manager.
• Anne Chan has been promoted to head of growth and product from her previous role as head of digital.

Following the Hong Kong leadership announcements, Jan Cho, managing director of TBWA Hong Kong, will assume a global role as head of product and delivery, TBWA Worldwide. Cho will transfer to London whilst continuing to play an advisory role for key clients in Hong Kong for the remainder of the year.

Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd., one of India’s leading media and entertainment conglomerates, has appointed Manisha Dey as the head of the devotional music category. With over 25 years in the media and entertainment industry, Dey brings a wealth of experience to her new role. Her career milestones include leading content and partnerships at Gaana. Prior to Gaana, Dey led content portfolios at leading music labels, including Saregama-HMV, Tips Music & Films, Music-Today, Milestone-EMI, etc.  

TRA Labs and Previously Unavailable, alongside founder James Donald, has launched their start-up, Ideally, a platform offering remarkably fast, affordable, and accessible customer insights to help bring great ideas to life. The partnership has appointed Donald as Ideally’s founder and CEO to drive growth across Australia and New Zealand. Donald brings more than a decade of experience in start-ups, product development and high-growth business innovation to Ideally. He was most recently the founder and director of NZ-based SaaS company Yonder, growing it from a start-up to a globally recognised travel industry AI chatbot and review system in five years. 

Propel Manila has appointed Jao Bautista as executive creative director and Michelle Edu as creative director to strengthen the agency’s creative leadership. Bautista brings 20 years’ worth of creativity, effectiveness, and leadership. Prior to Propel Manila, he worked as group creative director at Publicis JimenezBasic. He also worked at BBDO Guerrero and McCann Worldgroup Philippines before Publicis. Before joining Propel Manila, Edu worked at BBDO Guerrero for nine years.

OMD has appointed Dileep Raj Singh as head of digital (HOD) for its Asia Pacific regional leadership team. A digital native, Singh brings with him a wealth of experience across product, media agency and client sides in APAC, North America and the United Kingdom. He spent the last 10 years building diverse digital marketing teams covering areas including performance marketing, digital media planning, ad/martech, product marketing, branding and measurement. Singh will report to Charlotte Lee, CEO of OMD APAC, and work closely with the team, including chief strategy officer (CSO) David McCallen, and chief client officer (CCO) Sadhan Mishra, to drive and support APAC local markets as well as regional clients on digital, data and technology needs.

SenateSHJ has announced new appointments and promotions to its international team to enhance its services and expertise across diverse practice areas and portfolios.

• Scott Thompson has joined SenateSHJ's reputation practice as a partner in Australia, Prior to joining, Thompson led Forge Communications for two years, which was recently acquired by SenateSHJ.
• Amy Watson joins as associate partner in Australia. She previously led the team at Forge Communications.
• Bronwyn Raso, now a partner at SenateSHJ, brings to the Australian team over two decades of strategic communication and stakeholder engagement experience. 
• Marnie Sironen has taken on the role of associate partner, leveraging her 12 years of expertise in the healthcare sector in Australia. 
• Pip Scarff joins the agency as the new people & culture manager. 
• Natalie Hatton has been promoted to client director after two years with SenateSHJ.
• Jonathon Cookson has been promoted to director of digital marketing.
• Cecilia Rago joins the Australian team as client manager.
• Bella Cartman joins the Wellington office as a client executive. 

Raffles Hotels & Resorts has appointed Andrew Hartley as its new cluster director of sales and marketing, overseeing two of Southeast Asia’s most iconic luxury hotels: Raffles Hotel Le Royal and Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor in Cambodia. Based in Phnom Penh, Hartley brings more than 20 years of experience in luxury hotels around the world, including in Thailand, Singapore, Australia, China, Vietnam, the United Kingdom and Oman. Before Raffles, he was assistant vice president of strategic sales and marketing for Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts in the Asia-Pacific based in Singapore. Prior to that, he worked for Sofitel luxury hotels as sales and marketing executive across various markets in the region. 

Narrative, a branding and communication agency, has appointed Rajdeepgiri Goswami as its creative director—Art. With a career spanning 15 years in the creative trajectory of brand campaigns, prior to joining Narrative, Goswami held pivotal roles at globally renowned agencies, including Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, Publicis, and Plan B. He will be based in Bangalore. 

Eastwest PR has been appointed by Tenable, the exposure management company, as its strategic PR agency partner in Southeast Asia (SEA) after a competitive RFP with three other Singapore-based agencies. Under the regional remit, Eastwest will work with Tenable to build the cybersecurity firm’s brand presence and expand its media share of voice in Singapore and SEA. The agency will also leverage its proven track record of acting as a strategic advisor to client-partners to shape and grow Tenable’s PR programme in the region.  

Publicis Groupe Vietnam has made a trio of senior appointments. Pepper Feraren has been named chief strategy officer. Feraren comes with two decades of experience that covers multiple planning disciplines from brand to transformational channel strategy. He has spent most of his career at BBDO Guerrero Manila with a stint at BBH Singapore. Meanwhile, Paolo Garcia has been promoted to chief creative officer where he will continue to cultivate the diversity of over 100 creative talents at Publicis Groupe Vietnam. In addition, Julian Brzoska has been elevated to chief growth officer, a promotion that comes on the back of more than ten years of advancing Publicis Groupe’s capabilities and its clients’ growth ambitions in Vietnam. Publicis Vietnam hopes the trio will supercharge the Groupe’s solutions by intertwining creativity and craft with data, commercial innovation and technology. And Chandu Rajapreyar moves up to replace Paolo in his former role as ECD Leo Burnett in Vietnam. Rajapreyar has been creative director at the agency for the past five years.

Dentsu Malaysia has appointed Audrey Chong as its new CEO, effective 1 October 2023. Chong will be taking over from Kien Eng Tan who will retire on 19 October after having served as CEO since February 2021. Chong was previously CEO, Universal McCann Malaysia, and brings 25 years of industry experience across media, creative, strategy and digital marketing with in-depth understanding and expertise of the Malaysian market. Full story.

Snap has appointed Pulkit Trivedi as India managing director, reporting to APAC President, Ajit Mohan. Trivedi joins from Google where he has spent the past five years as the director of  Google Pay - India Business Team, responsible for business strategy, partnerships and monetisation. In his role, Trivedi will be responsible for leading Snap's Indian operations including driving revenue, supporting partners and nurturing the creator ecosystem. Under a new operational structure, the Growth, Market Development, Partnerships, Content and Creator Ecosystem teams now report directly to Trivedi. 

McCann Worldgroup’s Valerie Madon has been promoted to the role of APAC chief creative officer (CCO) after her first three months with the network. In this new position, Madon will be responsible for creative products across Asia. She retains her existing role as chair of McCann Worldgroup’s APAC Creative Leadership Community. Known as one of Asia’s top creatives, Madon joined the agency in May 2023 from her previous role as the director of Creative Shop, SEA and emerging markets at Meta.

TBWA Sydney and Eleven have bolstered its social and strategy capabilities with the appointment of Cal Guyll as social and content strategy director. Guyll joins the leadership of Eleven’s social team as well. He comes with 14 years of social expertise to TBWA’s multi-disciplinary strategy team. As part of the strategy team, he will also work across the TBWA Sydney collective including FleishmanHillard, GMR Australia and Fabric.

Tobias Wilson, the APAC former chief growth officer of MediaMonks who left the agency in August 2022 has launched a sustainability startup called Bumi. Essentially, Bumi is a green initiative that will cut down on the use of virgin materials that are used as a source materials for 99% of our daily lives products.

Victoria Chang is the new head of communications and content for Asia Pacific at British auction house Christie's, effective from 21 August. Based in Hong Kong, Chang will report to Natasha Le Bel, global head of communications, and Linda Chan, head of marketing, communications and client strategy, APAC. 

Australian brokerage platform, Stake, has appointed Sling & Stone as its PR agency of record in Australia, following a competitive pitch process. As part of the partnership, Sling & Stone will help to grow Stake’s brand presence across the Australian media, to establish the broker as a leading voice on investing and its culture. 

Havas has appointed Rastislav Kanuch as the CEO of Havas Cambodia. Reporting to Alberto Canteli, CEO and chairman Havas, Nordics, CEE and Middle East, SEA, Korea and Japan, Kanuch will lead Havas Cambodia through a journey of transformation and growth. His focus will encompass collaboration and partnerships, driving new business momentum, and nurturing and leading future-ready teams. Kanuch brings over 15 years of executive experience, having previously served as a board member and CEO at Unimedia, one of Slovakia's largest national media agencies. With a significant emphasis on client service, empathetic leadership, and consistently exceeding customer goals, Kanuch has been credited with increasing the agency's revenue and profitability.

Star Alliance has appointed The Secret Little Agency (TLSA) as its global creative agency of record following a highly-competitive pitch spanning six months. TSLA's remit covers global brand and marketing strategy and communications development, including brand and product campaigns. TSLA is the first APAC-based agency to be appointed as global AOR for Star Alliance. Founded in 1997, Star Alliance is the world’s first and largest airline alliance, with 26 member airlines, like Air China, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines and more. 

Canvas8, global behavioural insights practice, has appointed Andrea Ng as APAC insights director and elevated Hannah Langton from regional partnerships director to regional lead, APAC, to further strengthen its Singapore presence. Before joining Canvas8, Ng was insights director at Kadence International (Singapore). With a background in marketing and research, Ng has considerable regional experience spanning across Singapore, Australia, China and Indonesia. Langton has been with Canvas8 since March 2021 and relocated from the UK to Singapore in November 2022 to lead the practice’s Singapore and APAC expansion. 

IPG Mediabrands has confirmed the departure of Audrey Chong, chief executive officer of Universal McCann (UM) Malaysia, to pursue opportunities outside the group. Interim management of UM will fall in the hands of CEO of Mediabrands, Bala Pomaleh and managing director of UM, Rina Low, who will lead the team and ensure seamless operations. Pomaleh thanked Chong “for being a key member of the Mediabrands family for over five years and wish her much success with what’s next.” Chong joined IPG Malaysia in 2018 as chief investment officer and moved to head UM in 2021. 

Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore, part of The Heineken Company, has appointed Reinoud Ottervanger as managing director, effective from August 2023. Ottervanger takes over the role from Andy Hewson, who has moved on to a new role with Heineken Cambodia and will report to Kenneth Choo, managing director of Heineken Asia Pacific. Prior to joining APB Singapore, he was the managing director of Surinaamse Brouwerij, a Heineken subsidiary based in Suriname, South America, for over three years. Before that, he also held various commercial positions within the Heineken group, including Heineken Vietnam and Heineken Netherlands.