Tag: Appointments

Vietnam – Transparent programmatic and data-driven agency, Bidmath, has appointed Rakesh Singh, former head of digital, destination marketing and marcom at Hoiana, to be its new country manager for Vietnam and commercial head for APAC.

In his new role, Singh, who will be based in Ho Chi Minh City, will be responsible for leading the new business and solutions in Vietnam, as well as commercial partnerships across the APAC region. 

Aside from his previous role at Hoiana, Singh has also served as the managing director at Havas Media in Vietnam. In his career span of more than 18 years, he has always been associated with the large media and communications companies in the industry, having worked with agencies like Group M (Mindshare and Mediacom), Omnicom Publicis, and Havas Media Group across Asia and Africa markets, with more than 10 years in senior leadership roles. 

On his thoughts regarding the largest opportunity for brands in Vietnam, Singh commented that the share of programmatic advertising in several emerging markets in APAC is much lower than that of mature markets where more than 80% of the digital spend is bought programmatically, and the primary reason for this is the lack of exposure of brands to the several benefits of programmatic advertising and this is largely due to inefficiency and lack of capabilities prevailing within the industry primarily driven by traditional media agencies who are struggling to move from the traditional media buying approach to the new audience buying approach driven by data and technology.

He said, “With the advancement of technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), programmatic is now playing a significant role in the digital marketing ecosystem and with our huge expertise in this area, Bidmath is well placed to spearhead the growth in the region.”

Moreover, Singh also shared the key game-changers that he believes to be the future of online, which includes AI in marketing, the Metaverse, livestream commerce, AR, voice search optimisation, programmatic advertising, chatbots, and marketing automation, as well as micro-influencers, and shoppable content. Meanwhile, lack of resources, skills, and knowledge are amongst the key barriers for brands to achieve personalisation goals.

Singh noted, “I consider myself an emerging market specialist having had the opportunity to work across several emerging markets like India, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, South Africa, and Vietnam. With the rapidly accelerating technological advances in digital marketing, the recognised value of data and increasing data literacy amongst brands and marketers, I’m looking forward to many more interesting experiences in the near future.”

Mumbai, India – Madison PR, the communications arm of Madison World, has appointed Abhinav Krishna Srivastava, former COO at SPAG Asia and DYellowElephant, to be its new CEO. He will be based in the agency’s Mumbai office. 

With more than 21 years of experience, Srivastava is an expert in every aspect of internal and external communications covering public relations, public affairs/advocacy, digital, advertising and integrated marketing campaigns. He also comes with enriched experience of stakeholder engagement, CSR, financial and investor relations, crisis management, and media training. 

Moreover, Srivastava has led integrated marketing and communications strategies across sectors like consumer, lifestyle, food, pharma and healthcare, technology, and telecom, as well as energy, and infrastructure, amongst others. Having worked with some of the world’s most respected brands, he has experience with multiple consumer market mechanisms and managing complex corporate reputation programs for businesses.

Commenting on his new role, Srivastava said that he is beyond excited to join Madison Public Relations and be a part of such a respected, mission-driven team of India’s leading homegrown agency group. 

“I look forward to developing our business by building on established clients and finding new opportunities for growth. As the communications domain has got revamped in the past 2 years, I believe Madison’s might and my multi-sectoral experience will help us expand our growth horizon and get into the big league,” he added.

Meanwhile, Sam Balsara, chairman at Madison World, said, “I am delighted to have Abhinav lead our very capable and experienced Madison PR team as CEO. Am sure he will take Madison PR to new heights and will add a lot of value to our client’s business.”

Australia – Red Havas Health, the PR healthcare arm of Red Havas, has appointed Nicole Phillips, former associate partner at communications consultancy SenateSHJ, to be its new client services director.

In her new role, Phillips will be leading client accounts, identifying new business opportunities in the health technology and health services sectors, and acting as a senior contact in the Havas Health & You network. She will be reporting to Sue Cook, practice head at Red Havas Health, reuniting the healthcare peers who previously worked together for a decade. Their already strong working relationship is set to significantly benefit the agency, the team, and its clients.

Phillips brings over 25 years of experience as a communication, reputation, and engagement advisor specialising in healthcare and specialist medical services in consulting and in-house roles. She spent 16 years leading the global public affairs and marketing team for ASX-listed Virtus Health, working across its fertility, diagnostics, and day hospital operations. Moreover, Phillips has worked for patient advocacy organisations and represented healthcare professional organisations, private and public health services, and many pharmaceutical clients. 

Commenting on her appointment, Phillips said, “The energy at Red Havas is infectious (pardon the pun) and the ability to deliver integrated communications strategies working with our Village colleagues across social, experiential, corporate and public affairs to communicate the human stories behind the science is an exciting prospect.”

Meanwhile, Cook shared that she is excited to be working with Phillips given their history of working together, both as colleagues and in client/consultancy relationships.

She added, “With Nic’s expertise, we will be looking to expand our remit in health technology and health services, whilst continuing our focus on our core sectors of pharmaceuticals and consumer health which have grown significantly since I joined Red Havas in late 2018. In addition, our patient advocacy work continues with a key ongoing partnership with the National Breast Cancer Foundation, a passion project for our agency as this cause touches so many of us.”

In a further boost to Red Havas Health, the agency also announced the appointments of Alice Cullam, the new senior account manager, and Daisy Bartlett, the new account manager. Cullam is an experienced healthcare communicator having spent 12 years working across COVID-19, diabetes, heart disease, ophthalmology, oncology, and mental health projects locally and overseas. While Bartlett has been working with the team since the start of this year and now joins them from Scotland.

Steve Fontanot, managing director at Red Havas, said, “With Red Havas’ global approach to health communications, the team is playing an important role in communicating the human stories behind the science. We’re grateful to Sue for her stewardship here in Australia over the years, as well as to the wider team for the important role that they play within society. I think we can all agree that these last few years have been a particularly busy and crucial time in health communications. Additionally, we’re so very glad that Nicole, Alice, and Daisy have joined the team – their impacts have been immediate and impressive.”

Malaysia – End-to-end creative commerce agency VMLY&R COMMERCE in Malaysia has announced the appointment of two new senior hires to solidify its end-to-end capabilities. The appointees are Voon Tai, the new head of commerce/strategy, effective June 2022, and Victoria Chu, the new head of client engagement, effective July 2022. Both will report directly to Kenni Loh, CEO of VMLY&R COMMERCE Malaysia.

The move will see Tai driving connected commerce, closing the loop of brand experience (BX) and customer experience (CX) to deliver effective growth results, while Chu will be looking at business growth and injecting her experience in media and digital marketing within the connection strategy and applying them to the agency’s proprietary planning tool – the infinity loop.

Tai, who is the former channel strategy and commerce director at VMLY&R COMMERCE Indonesia, will also be leading this region’s shopper and experiential hub. She is a specialist in identifying insights across a wider set of disciplines (retail or trade, channels, shoppers, and B2B), weaving O2O planning and matching with data to elevate the agency’s new offerings.

Meanwhile, former general manager at Invictusblue Group, which was previously known as Zenith Media, Chu will be co-managing, building, strengthening, and growing existing and new businesses. She is also tasked with strengthening end-to-end creative commerce strategy by applying her deep knowledge of the media channel connection strategy. This in turn provides an enriched integrated perspective to the agency’s work.

Commenting on the appointment, Tai said, “The Malaysia office has always done great work for VMLY&R COMMERCE in the region. The people, energy and agency are in a constant state of innovation. I am very much looking forward to working with our clients and our extraordinary team to deliver meaningful experiences to both consumers and brands.”

Chu also commented, “I am excited with this opportunity as it allows me to contribute my knowledge & experience to a dynamic agency such as VMLY&R COMMERCE. Being part of this diverse team of specialists will help me grow my capabilities and together I look forward to enhancing the products and services we can offer to our clients.”

Meanwhile, Loh shared that they are excited to be welcoming the two talents to their ever-growing commerce operation, as Tai’s eager nature to explore marketing innovations and creativity will elevate their unique creative commerce positioning, while Chu is a well-rounded breed with strong capabilities in both media and digital marketing.

“Specifically, we need like-minded talents to constantly push for innovation and technology to level up ideas that drive commercial growth. Everything we do now is to feed, build and strengthen the end-to-end offering of our ‘infinity loop’ of BX and, CX with Commerce in the heart. We are at the stage of not just being able to complete the loop offering but also to provide extra enrichment and value such as Media strategy, BX and CX capabilities elevating from local to regional coverage. Not forgetting our hyper localised intel and data generated from our Intel lab and Muslim intel lab,” said Loh.

These new roles at VMLY&R COMMERCE Malaysia are strategically aligned with the appointment earlier this year of Nick Pan, the new chief commerce and strategy officer at VMLY&R Asia. He now leads VMLY&R Asia’s strategic thrust in combining commerce and strategy, leveraging BX and CX to drive business growth and commercial outcomes for brands, in a customer-centric world that is challenged by fragmented channels and touchpoints.

Montreal, Canada – Programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) adtech Hivestack has appointed Benjamin Abbatiello, former vice president of Advanced TV at Beachfront Media, to be its new global senior vice president of publisher solutions. 

In his new role, Abbatiello will be responsible for driving Hivestack’s global publisher solutions division comprising its Supply Side Platform (SSP), AdServer, Yield Manager, and omnichannel demand-side platform (DSP) proposition. The publisher solutions division of the business offers this suite of tools to enable Publishers to optimise and monetise their DOOH inventory programmatically. 

Abbatiello brings valuable industry experience with over two decades in adtech, most recently from within the CTV and AddressableTV space. His knowledge across the media owner ecosystem will be invaluable in the continued growth of the Hivestack platform. Aside from his recent role at Beachfront Media, Abbatiello has also held executive roles at various notable adtech companies including Yahoo, Spot X, Interclick, Eyeblaster, and ContextWeb.

Commenting on his appointment, Abbatiello said that he has been blessed to be on the frontline for many successful and innovative ad serving initiatives in the past, and those experiences have afforded him the ability to recognize what success looks like across a variety of mediums and environments. 

“Hivestack represents all the necessary ingredients I know to be true in achieving success with a culture that fosters enthusiasm for their partners, thought leadership at every level, fierce independence and of course, agile technology at a global scale in which to connect OOH media owners and brands through one mediation voice,” he added.

Nigel Clarkson, Hivestack’s global chief revenue officer, commented that they are thrilled to welcome Abbatiello and his impressive digital experience, especially in the CTV arena.

“Aside from our DSP and SSP business, we are a global DOOH AdServer and recently launched the world’s first header bidder designed specifically for DOOH. Ben has seen those technologies evolve in other online channels and will be integral in helping global DOOH evolve in the right way,” said Clarkson.

Most recently, Hivestack has partnered with COM2US, a global multi-content and gaming platform company in South Korea, to launch the first cross-border programmatic DOOH campaign in the USA via Open Exchange through the Hivestack DSP.

Singapore – Southeast Asia’s superapp, Grab, has announced five industry leaders who will join the team to further its advertising capabilities and strengthen the technology, product, marketing, partnership and operational capabilities of its GrabAds offerings. The executives will play a key role in growing and developing GrabAds, which connects advertisers large and small with millions of consumers across the region.

The appointees include Jennie Johnson as the new head of marketing for GrabAds, Kaia Lai as the new head of product for search and personalisation technology, and Christina Lin as the new product marketing lead for ads and personalisation technology, as well as Kareen Mendoza as the new regional financial services partnership lead at GrabAds, and Yi Ling Wong as the new head of sales operations at GrabAds.

As the new head of marketing for GrabAds, Johnson, who brings 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, will be leading brand building and demand generation to accelerate growth, while Lai, the new head of product for search and personalisation technology of Grab, will be leading company-wide efforts to build a unified search strategy and platform for Grab, deepening the superapp’s personalisation capabilities to delight end users.

Meanwhile, Lin will be responsible for driving the adoption of GrabAds’ full-funnel advertising solutions as product marketing lead for ads and personalisation technology, and will be working closely with product development to build solutions to help businesses of all sizes to harness the Grab ecosystem. 

Mendoza, the new regional financial services partnership lead, will also be driving efforts to support financial services advertisers in harnessing the power of GrabAds to create meaningful engagements with high-value audiences. And lastly, Wong, the new head of sales operations at Grab, will be responsible for driving sales operational efficiencies for the team and advertisers.

In May, Grab has announced its commitment to increasing the percentage of women in leadership roles as part of its annual Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) report. This is to ensure that the company has diverse voices in management positions and considers a variety of views in crafting and implementing policies and decisions.

“We continue to build technology that connects advertisers with the millions of consumers who use Grab to commute, eat and shop every day. I’m thrilled to welcome these leaders, who will be instrumental in furthering the GrabAds mission: helping merchants and advertisers build their brand while driving real-world sales impact using Southeast Asia’s leading superapp,” said Ken Mandel, Grab’s regional managing director and head of GrabAds and Brand Insights.

Sydney, Australia – Insights and research consultancy TRA has announced the appointment of a new head of innovation and two new directors to join its burgeoning Sydney team. 

The three new appointments include Nikki Davey as head of innovation at TRA Sydney. In her new role, Davey will lead TRA’s innovation capability, partnerships, and thought leadership while driving growth for clients. Davey was formerly the director of innovation at Kantar. 

Ngaia Calder has also been appointed as the new business director for TRA in Sydney. Prior to joining TRA Sydney, Calder was a customer insights specialist at Kmart. Meanwhile, Tara Collins is joining as the new account director at TRA Sydney. Collins previously worked as an associate director at The Behavioural Architects, and Senior Consultant at TRA New Zealand.

As senior client service roles, Calder and Collins share a remit to build relationships with clients founded on a shared value of delivering powerful work that influences change for TRA’s partners. 

The appointments shortly come after the recent opening of TRA Sydney’s office and the appointment of its Managing Partner, Terri Hall. The newly created roles will report to Terri Hall.

Hall said she is delighted about the calibre of her new team, brought onboard to support the momentum behind the business.

“Since launching earlier this year and securing two foundation clients, I have prioritised building a skilled team whose collective passion for customer-centric insights will optimise our focus to deliver the best possible client outcomes,” Hall said.

Hall explained, “At TRA we do things differently. We have a deep obsession with people and doing what we can to improve their lives. We consistently stretch our craft skills, challenge ourselves towards innovative and creative solutions to problems, and relentlessly pursue telling stories that drive change. This is what clients need from us and I know that as a team we have an exciting opportunity to make an impact in Sydney.” 

Hall further said, “Our team has fresh perspectives on how insights can bring inspiration, foresight and confidence to decision making. I believe TRA is poised to make a significant impact on Sydney’s insights market; we have the talent, the new home, and the drive to make things happen.”

In her new role, Davey shared, “I’m so looking forward to joining this incredibly talented and well-respected team and being part of an agency that has such a clear, recognised innovation mindset and fresh take on generating insights. 

“On a personal level, I am excited to get started doing what I love most, which is building strong relationships with our client partners to drive business growth at this pivotal moment in TRA’s journey,” Davey added.

The team has moved into new offices at The Commons Surry Hills, in the heart of Sydney’s creative community. Collins and Davey will be based at The Commons alongside Hall, while Calder will work between Noosa and Sydney, under TRA’s Flex policy. 

Singapore – Programmatic media partner MiQ has elevated its current CEO for ANZ, Jason Scott, to the new role of CEO for APAC, adding SEA to his leadership remit. 

In his upgraded role, Scott will be responsible for driving business growth and expansion throughout SEA. His remit includes APAC countries excluding India and China, and he will continue to serve as CEO for Australia and New Zealand.

Scott joined MiQ in 2019, following a successful career in advertising and media. He has been the general manager for Microsoft Advertising Asia, responsible for growing revenue and market share in the Asia region including greater China, India, and Japan. Scott has also held senior executive roles at Allure Media (Fairfax) and ninemsn, using his digital media and sales background to service some of the world’s largest technology clients.

Commenting on his elevation, Scott said that he is thrilled to be adding the fast-growing SEA region to his current remit, as the region’s market is dynamic and fast-paced and he is looking forward to accelerating growth by adding additional regional support. 

“MiQ has grown significantly over the past few years, with regional expansion across Australia, increased channel diversity, growth in our product portfolio and senior staff appointments. My priority now is to ensure MiQ is adequately servicing the Southeast Asian market and securing its position within the global MiQ network,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Richard Dunmall, MiQ’s global president, shared that since Scott joined them in late 2019, his performance leading their ANZ business has been nothing short of exceptional. 

“As momentum continues to build, I’m excited to see how Jason’s leadership can now be applied to our fastest-growing region. Jason is no stranger to this dynamic part of the world, holding multiple leadership positions across the region, throughout his career. I have no doubt he will continue to drive business across APAC,” he said.

Singapore – Strategic communications consultancy RICE has announced its new line of consultants in its Singapore office. These appointments follow the consultancy’s latest announcement of five new partners to its business.

The new hires are led by Hsu Lin who joins as account director. With over a decade of communications and public relations experience, she was previously the associate director at Ninemer Communications for more than 11 years, where she rose through the ranks and consulted for B2B and consumer clients across Asia Pacific.

Other hires include Gillian Pinto as a senior account manager, Magel Ordoñez and Saeful Hakim as account managers, Alexandra Koh and Sarah Sim as senior account executives, as well as Ainul Mardiyah, Nursyazwani Jamil and Deanna Nabilah as account executives.

Mayda Jutahkiti, general manager for Singapore at RICE, said, “Our new consultants are joining RICE during a time of growth. With diverse backgrounds, each of them brings valuable skills and experience. As we scale as a consultancy, we continue to hire and are looking for talent across all levels.”

RICE has recently announced new technology retainer wins with enterprise automation software company UiPath and voice AI start-up AI Rudder.