Tag: advisory board

Singapore – Global gaming and entertainment company Ampverse Group has announced the appointment of a new board of advisors comprising distinguished global executives from the gaming, advertising, investment, technology, and media sectors. This strategic move accelerates Ampverse Group’s expansion and solidifies its position as a dominant force in the industry.

The new members of the advisory board include John Redgrave, Marcus John, Rohit Sharma, Oliver Woodley, Chirag Shah, and Gita Ramakrishnan. Together, they will propel Ampverse Group into its next phase of growth under the leadership of Ampverse CEO Charlie Baillie.

As the former vice president at Discord, Redgrave played a pivotal role in the company’s growth and success. He previously founded Lattice, which was later acquired by Apple and Sentropy which was sold to Discord. With a deep understanding of digital platforms and a keen eye for innovation, Redgrave brings invaluable expertise to Ampverse Group’s advisory board.

Meanwhile, for over 3 decades, John has advised Fortune 500 companies, federations, governments, and investors on major sports and entertainment investments, including the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, and Formula 1. He is currently the CEO of Sports Capital Advisors and was formerly global head of sports of WPP’s MediaCom and managing director of IMG/Endeavor China.

As the former COO and board member of AnyMind Group, Sharma also founded POKKT, a mobile video advertising platform in India, SEA and MENA that has been backed by Investors such as JAFCO Asia, Jungle Ventures, Singtel Innov8 and GSF.

Meanwhile, Woodley is the global commercial director of Soho House Group and long-time investor into Ampverse, and also formerly held senior roles at VICE Media. 

For Shah, he is a seasoned entrepreneur, having co-founded several ad tech companies, including one acquired by Dentsu. He brings a wealth of experience in Gaming 360, scaling businesses, giving investment advice, and navigating complex markets. 

Lastly, Samakrishnan is a seasoned investor with over 20 years of experience in capital markets, excelling in both private and public equities with a top decile performance record. 

The combined expertise and global reach of this new board will be a driving force in Ampverse Group’s ambitious growth plans. These advisors bring unparalleled experience in digital innovation, strategic investments, and market expansion. Their insights and leadership will guide Ampverse Group in exploring new frontiers, enhancing its market presence, and fueling sustainable growth.

Charlie Baillie, CEO of Ampverse Group, said, “To build a remarkable company, you need a remarkable team. Since founding Ampverse Group in 2019, we’ve been fortunate to attract a world-class group of team members and investors. Looking ahead, we have huge global ambitions, and therefore I’m excited and honoured that such a distinguished group of leaders from the gaming, media, investment, technology, and advertising sectors share our vision and have agreed to join our newly formed advisory board.” 

Bangkok, Thailand – Thailand-based marketing and mass communication agency Rabbit’s Tale has announced adding Jod Songkran Sethesompobe to its advisory board. As part of the board, the former CEO of Publicis Groupe Thailand will help in strengthening the agency’s mission to create new trends and disruptions in the advertising industry in the local market.

Aside from Publicis Groupe Thailand, he also assumed the CEO position at BBDO Bangkok. He also co-founded Creative Juice/G1, an agency in the TBWA-OmniCom network whilst assuming a managing director position in the agency.

Sunard Thanasanaksorn, CEO of Rabbit’s Tale, highlighted Songkran’s notable experience that he has proven during a time of disruption and transformation in the industry, and said this will be essential as the agency looks to progress as a full-fledged experience agency.

Feeling enthusiastic about joining the team, Songkran commented, “The team at Rabbit’s Tale has a great dynamic when it comes to creativity and is well-positioned to drive growth in this exciting industry.”

Rabbit’s Tale delivers creative services for both brands and consumers through its four business groups, including advertising, public relations, data and interactive, and customer experience solutions.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Customer engagement platform MoEngage has announced the launch of its new strategic customer advisory board that taps marketing experts of some of its clients to aid them in their endeavor in product development, including innovations around AI-powered technology to transform the future of customer engagement and experience management.

The advisory board members are namely Rajan Bansal, head of growth Marketing at Airtel; Parasar Sharma, Ex-CMO at Wakefit; Maha Iyer, SVP for marketing at Landmark; Yatish Jain, chief growth officer at OYO; Minal Thukral, SVP for marketing at CoinDCX; Aseem Sharma, head of growth at Navi; Saurabh Goel, head of digital at HT Media; Anand Bhaskaran, head of digital marketing and marketing communications at Bigbasket; Bhargav Errangi, head of retention marketing at Flipkart; and Vikraman Sridharan, director of products at Sharechat.

The board will have representation from MoEngage‘s top enterprise customers cutting across various industries such as banking, telecom, hospitality, retail, education, media and entertainment. MoEngage has seen rapid growth over the past year, including substantial expansion of over 80% in its customer base.

Raviteja Dodda, co-founder and CEO at MoEngage, said, “The customer advisory board is an invaluable resource for MoEngage, and we are grateful for the support from a group of outstanding industry leaders. This is a key initiative that will be instrumental in accelerating our customers’ success. It will also help determine how we can best serve our customers and co-create the product innovation roadmap. I am excited to pioneer the future of customer engagement alongside our customers.”

The board will meet at regular intervals to deliberate and offer counsel on customer challenges and emerging technology trends. These insights will help MoEngage align its product innovation roadmap with the strategic requirements of consumer brands and build the right solutions for the market. MoEngage’s key enterprise customers will also be able to gain an early view of the advanced capabilities to be introduced to the company’s platform.

During the inaugural meeting to welcome the new members, Atma Gunupudi, VP for global customer success at MoEngage said, “We are grateful to our customer executives who took time out of their busy schedule to be a part of our customer advisory board for the year 2022. We believe that the board members would enjoy learning from each other and guide our strategy and vision at MoEngage.”

Gunupudi added, “It is a privilege for us to be able to collaborate with some of the brightest minds in the region to co-create the future of the insights-led customer engagement.”

Mumbai, India – With the aim of helping brands create more responsible advertising practices for their upcoming campaigns, advertising regulatory body Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has launched a new service called ‘Advertising Service’ which gives brands non-binding advice, at a pre-production stage, on advertising claims and depictions to further mitigate the risk of ads being misleading, offensive, unfair or unsafe.

Said service, which will be available for all members and non-members of ASCI, and will be under a paid service.

Part of the objective that ASCI holds with the launch of this new service is that aside from being a regulatory body, they also aim to help protect consumers from objectionable ads. . They also added that the service provides confidential quick expertise to help advertisers make more responsible advertising, which in turn, saves them effort, money as well as possible loss of reputation once the advertisement is already in the marketplace.

In addition, ‘Advertising Service’ aims to help advertisers balance creativity with responsibility and is being offered in line with best global practices followed by different self-regulatory organizations.

“What is quite unique in the ASCI Advertising Advice service is that the Advertising Advice panel will also include technical experts in different specialties who can examine the claim and evidence for technical claim support. It is important to note that this service is not intended to be a pre-clearance, and advertisers may use the advice to better their ads in a manner they deem fit,” the regulatory board said in a press statement.

The service, while provided by the body’s technical team and subject experts, is not a pre-clearance of the advertisement, and neither is it a guarantee against complaints being filed by consumers. However, the service is expected to mitigate the risk of advertising being misleading, offensive, unsafe, or unfair. 

“ASCI will process any complaints they receive against such ads as per its normal process. The advisory panel for Advertising Advice service is completely different from the complaints process to avoid any potential conflicts,” they added.

For Subhash Kamath, chairman at ASCi, the newly-launched service as a crucial element in the cause of self-regulation pushed the body, adding that the service gives brands a chance to better prepare their campaigns and mitigate reputational risks.

“While there is no guarantee that consumers will not raise a claim against a brand, the advisory does help brands take steps to ensure that their campaigns don’t violate any norms formulated to protect consumer interest. We believe that this advisory service will provide the necessary support to the advertising ecosystem to create more responsible ads without affecting creativity,” Kamath stated.

Meanwhile, Manisha Kapoor, secretary-general at ASCI, commented that the advisory can be used by brands to great effect while planning their campaigns as brands wish to be competitive and push the boundaries of claims. She also added that with this service, they can support advertisers to make strong claims while not crossing the all-important lines of honesty, decency, fairness, and safety.

“An external scrutiny by experts at the pre-production stage can add tremendous value to campaign development. [In the] post-release of the campaign, any stoppage can cause significant disruption and cost for an organization. But by making this a part of the way advertisers think of campaigns at an early stage, such risks can be mitigated. We see this as a win-win for advertisers and consumers, who then get exposed to fewer problematic ads,” Kapoor added.

ASCI has long been helping advertisers with proper regulations about advertisements, which included their draft guidelines on influencer ads, and COVID-19 related campaigns.

Melbourne, Australia – Thrive, an Australian fintech, has involved itself in a one-of-a-kind business management move with the creation of its Customer Advisory Board (CAB), a board comprising of customers and not trustees, to bestow customers rights and authority to contribute to its operations. 

Thrive is a single integrated banking, accounting, tax and lending platform, and unlike conventional advisory boards that are composed of industry leaders with long leadership experience, Thrive aims to create its own CAB by accepting applications from a variety of different business owners – its customers – ensuring a broad cross-section of feedback, suggestions, and needs are collected. 

Each board member will self-nominate through an application process, with successful applicants receiving shares in Thrive for a 12-month commitment. Meeting monthly, the CAB will be given the ability to help shape Thrive’s product roadmap, marketing strategy and customer service plans. 

According to Michael Nuciforo, CEO at Thrive, the concept was implemented to ensure customers were always front of mind, noting as well that they are the first fintech to do so that has implemented a customer-centric advisory board.

“Nothing is more important to us than our customers, so setting up a Customer Advisory Board that represented the interest of members was the best way for us to hold ourselves accountable to our mission,” Nuciforo stated.

Thrive is currently accepting nominations for the CAB and is looking for business owners who are passionate about helping other businesses improve their financial wellbeing. 

“We expect to get many applications and we can’t wait to select our CAB Members and get this started,” said Ben Winford, co-founder and COO at Thrive.

The application process will conclude on 30 April this year.

Singapore – Former global CEO for dentsu’s content and creative, Dick van Motman, will now take the helm as the chairman of the advisory board of Singapore-based pop culture marketing Culture Group.

Through his new appointment, van Motman will advise Culture Group regarding market entry and development, as well as mergers and acquisitions, and executive mentorship.

Prior to his latest position at Culture Group and his past role from dentsu, van Motman has also served as chairman for dentsu in Southeast Asia, and has accumulated more than 30 years of building brands and businesses globally. 

Aside from the current role, van Motman is also on the way to launching his own consulting and investment group which will focus on accelerating the growth of disruptive businesses in emerging industries.

Commenting regarding his appointment, van Motman stated that his newest affiliation with Culture Groups speaks more about a “combination of strategy, creativity, production and strong leadership” that places the agency in “a unique position to define how brands leverage pop culture to create business success.”

“In a dynamic region where demographics are skewed younger, digitally adept, and in search for expression and identity, brands that are anchored in pop culture thrive commercially. Culture Group’s uncommon approach goes beyond advertising and seeks to drive brands to consciously forge a connection with the right passion point,” van Motman stated.

Meanwhile, Culture Group’s founder and president Michael Patent commented, “Dick’s unparalleled history in the region and commitment to developing the next generation of transformative businesses is why we’re excited to partner with him as we embark on our next phase of growth,”

Culture Group has been ramping up its senior hires for its advisory board, including Marie Lee who similarly joins from dentsu to spearhead the agency’s insights and strategy function in Singapore; and Jakeena Malli who joins from Mindshare as group account director, as well as Angie Akaraskul who from Brave Bison, to take the role of business director.