Tag: Appointments

California, USA – Global mobile marketing analytics platform, Adjust, has elevated Simon (Bobby) Dussart, its former chief customer officer (CCO), to be its new chief executive officer (CEO). The elevation comes after Adjust’s co-founder and former CEO, Paul H. Müller, steps into an advisory role capacity.

Dussart joined Adjust in 2014, as one of the company’s early team members, and has played an instrumental role in Adjust‘s transition from being a standalone mobile measurement partner (MMP) to the platform that powers marketers’ decision-making, while becoming a go-to for clients as CCO. He has also held several roles during his eight-year tenure, including serving as the head of solutions and integrations and as vice president of support. These are all laser-focused on supporting the platform’s customers and understanding the intricacies of Adjust‘s products to ensure they meet marketers’ evolving needs.

Prior to joining Adjust, he also held positions in software development at LaCIME Research Lab and BonGo Innovations, amongst others.

Commenting on his elevation, Dussart said “I look forward to this next chapter as we continue to develop innovative solutions that continue to address the needs of mobile marketers today — bringing added value to even more businesses across the globe, including accelerated growth in China and Southeast Asia, and continued leadership in EMEA and Japan.”

Adam Foroughi, the co-founder and CEO of AppLovin, which acquired Adjust in 2021, shared that Dussart started with Adjust very early and has been fiercely dedicated to the product and its innovation of it ever since. 

“He is passionate about meeting customers’ needs — keeping them at the centre of everything Adjust does — and has natural leadership ability. All of this makes him the perfect person to lead Adjust in this next chapter,” said Foroughi.

Meanwhile, Müller commented that Dussart has been a valuable and trusted partner since the formation of Adjust, with his unique mix of expertise at the intersection of technology development, customer success, and operational management.

“He has an acute understanding of clients’ needs, why they choose to Adjust over other MMPs, and how Adjust’s products are actually built, making him perfectly positioned to execute our vision of becoming the single set of solutions that empower mobile marketers in every aspect of their job,” said Müller.

Hong Kong – Ashbury, the strategic communications firm dedicated to serving financial service companies, has announced two new appointments for its Hong Kong office namely Ellin Choy as associate director of Ashbury’s advisory team and Jason Wincuinas as associate director, senior writer and editor.

Choy was previously with Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab in Asia-Pacific as a programme lead. Through that role, she managed relationships with over 60 partners and provided counsel and advice to participating fintechs. In her new role at Ashbury, she will be working closely with Noel Cheung, director of advisory at Ashbury.

Meanwhile, Wincuinas joins from think-tank group Economist Impact, previously known as the Economist Intelligence Unit, where he had been a senior editor since 2018. In his previous role, he has worked extensively with financial clients on research-driven projects focused on technology and ESG.

Adam Harper, managing director at Ashbury, said, “Ellin and Jason are both talented individuals who bring valuable skills and experience to our clients across our advisory and content offerings. As Ashbury celebrates its second anniversary, our ability to attract colleagues of this calibre reflects our strong momentum and the way that our proposition resonates with clients.”

Ashbury has updated its clientele base in the past few months, retaining global independent investment bank Houlihan Lokey, as well as Eventus Systems, a multi-asset class trade surveillance, market risk and transaction monitoring systems provider. Ashbury has also signed recently a contract with Episode Six, a payments technology firm.

Montreal, Canada – Independent programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) adtech, Hivestack, has appointed Mina Naguib, former senior director and chief architect at advertising ecosystem Samsung Ads, to be its new chief technology officer (CTO).

Naguib is a tech industry veteran since 1997, and his expertise spans many areas including data centre management, cloud and virtualization, low-level system development, web and application development, and distributed systems. During his previous role at Samsung Ads, Naguib has managed the design, operations, and growth of various advertising technologies and teams. Prior to this, he was an architect at creative marketing and communications agency Cossette. Naguib has also participated in the IAB Tech Labs in defining industry frameworks for European and US privacy compliance.

In his new role, Naguib will be responsible for the long-term strategic direction of the organization’s overall technology function. He will establish technology standards to direct strategic design, as well as manage and implement an enterprise-wide technology infrastructure. Naguib will also play a key role in recognising and analysing trends and innovations that would directly impact the company’s products and performance.

Commenting on his appointment, Naguib said, “I am thrilled to be joining the Hivestack leadership team at such a transformational time for the industry. I look forward to working closely with Andreas, Bruno and the entire team to ensure Hivestack’s technology is world-class, empowers our customers, and is a joy to use.”

Meanwhile, Andreas Soupliotis, Hivestack’s founder and CEO, said, “Mina is widely respected within the ad tech industry and joins our team at a pivotal time and brings with him a wealth of knowledge to support our efforts of driving innovation across the DOOH landscape.”

Bruno Guerrero, Hivestack’s chief operations officer, shared that it is an incredibly exciting time for them at Hivestack as they continue to design and build market-leading technology for the advertisers and media owners within the DOOH ecosystem.

“Having Mina join our team is a testament to our commitment to driving innovation across the DOOH industry and we are fortunate to have him joining our team,” said Guerrero. 

Just recently, Hivestack has launched its programmatic DOOH marketplace in Malaysia, where brands, agencies and omnichannel demand-side platforms (DSPs) can access the Hivestack platform to plan, activate, and measure programmatic DOOH campaigns via private marketplace (PMP) and open exchange deals.

Singapore – Global mass media and entertainment giant, WarnerMedia, has appointed three new senior content hires in Asia, in an aim to scale up its original productions teams in advance of the launch of HBO Max in the region.

For the Singapore team, Mark Francis, former head of content for OTT at TV and radio operator Astro, will be WarnerMedia’s new group lead of production and development, both scripted and unscripted. He will lead a regional team to develop Asian original productions under the ‘Max Originals’ banner. 

Meanwhile, Shi Ming Wee, former assistant vice president of regional content and productions at streaming media platform Viu, has been named the new head of entertainment content acquisition for North Asia content. She will now be working alongside Katheryn Lim, who leads content acquisition for international and English-language entertainment titles. They will both report to Magdalene Ew, WarnerMedia’s head of content – entertainment for SEA, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

For Mumbai, Saugata Mukherjee, former head of content for SONY LIV at Sony Pictures Networks India, will be joining WarnerMedia as the new head of content – entertainment for India. He will now be responsible for commissioning local originals, as well as acquiring and developing Indian content across all general entertainment genres. The newly-created role, like Ew, reports to Clement Schwebig, WarnerMedia’s managing director for India, SEA, and Korea.

Schwebig believes that these roles are vital as WarnerMedia looks to ramp up its original content and programming ambitions in the Asia region. 

“Saugata, Mark and Shi Ming have a great eye for a winning project and have enviable connections within the industry. With them all now in place over the past few months, we’re looking in great shape to entertain local audiences with a well-rounded and premium slate,” said Schwebig.

California, USA – Fintech Nium has appointed Robin Gandhi, former vice president of payments at travel management and expense management firm TripActions, to be its new chief product officer.

In his new role, Gandhi will be responsible for defining and executing product strategy to expand leadership in existing markets and pursue new addressable markets for Nium. His role includes end-to-end product life cycle ownership, from product vision and strategy to oversight of technology development. Gandhi will work closely across Nium to ensure continued customer success and market share growth. 

During his stint at TripActions, Gandhi has led the product, engineering, design, and operations efforts for the firm’s Liquid offering, which is the next-generation payments and issuing platform that powers TripActions travel capabilities and end-to-end expense management product. 

Prior to this, Gandhi was at the Dutch payment platform Adyen, where he was the general manager of its global issuing offering, managing go-to-market and product, as well as running acquiring, product, data, and partnerships for North America. He has also worked with global card schemes, banks, financial institutions, and third-party partners that make omnichannel commerce possible for their merchants across the globe. 

Commenting on his appointment, Gandhi said, “I couldn’t be more excited to join Nium and continue delivering on its promise of simplifying the payments experience for businesses and powering frictionless commerce.”

Meanwhile, Prajit Nanu, Nium’s CEO and co-founder, said, “Robin is a deeply experienced leader with an incredible vision for product management and a wealth of industry knowledge across the payments ecosystem. He will be an essential part of our leadership team and I’m personally looking forward to seeing him take our product efforts to the next level.”

Pakistan – Global snacking company Mondelēz has appointed Sami Wahid, its former strategy lead for the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP), as the new managing director for Pakistan.

Wahid brings over 17 years of experience in the fields of marketing, sales, and strategy. He has a long association with Mondelez International, starting back in 2015 where he became part of the organization and have overlooked various responsibilities across many markets. During his most recent role at Mondelez, he has steered and transformed the company through the challenging times of the pandemic.

In his new role, Wahid will be responsible for Mondelēz Pakistan’s overall business strategy and commercial offerings.

Commenting on his appointment, Wahid said that it is an honour to take on the new role, especially at a time when there are growing opportunities and promising business avenues for Pakistan.

He further shared that they have built a strong foundation for the company in the past years which is envisioned to grow even further through tactful and strategic means.

“My aim is to bring the years of knowledge and experience of multi-markets & categories to further accelerate the company’s growth via deepening our connection with consumers and expanding our footprints into evolving channels, as well as focusing on our team development,” said Wahid.

Singapore — Creative agency Ogilvy has announced that Arvind Srivastava has been promoted to become chief strategy officer of Ogilvy for the Asia division. He recently held the same position for Ogilvy China.

Srivastava started as a customer relationship planner at OgilvyOne Delhi and has spent nearly two decades with Ogilvy Asia where he has worked in various strategic planning roles that increased his expertise in the market.

Srivastava moved to Shanghai in 2016 and has since then helped build a modern strategy offering bringing together brand, CRM, commerce, data, media connections, and social strategists. He was responsible for leading Ogilvy China’s strategy for handling their global top-value clients namely Nestlé and The Coca-Cola Company and played a key role on large Chinese brands including AliExpress. Under his leadership, Ogilvy has been ranked one of the most effective networks in the Greater China Effies for 3 of the past 5 years.

Srivastava commented on his promotion, saying that Ogilvy has one of the strongest and the most effective strategy teams in Asia, and he feels truly honoured to be given this responsibility.

“I am excited at the opportunity to partner with our strategy and business leaders to continue evolving and modernizing Ogilvy Asia’s strategic solutions to drive growth and impact for our clients at the intersection of capabilities,” Srivastava said.

Srivastava will continue to be based in China and he replaces Benoit Weisser who will be relocating to Europe to be closer to family.

Chris Reitermann, co-chief executive of Asia and chief executive of Greater China, shared his praises for the new CSO, saying, “Arvind has done an outstanding job for Ogilvy Asia for nearly 20 years in various strategy roles across several Asian markets. He has a deep understanding of the evolving strategy needs of our Clients and brings a great mix of business, brand and digital strategy to our offer. We very much look forward to partnering with him in building on the strong foundation set by Benoit and I’m personally excited to have a strong strategic partner continuing to be based out of China.”

This January, Ogilvy’s Malaysian arm has announced their appointment of Eddy Nazarullah, former creative director at Reprise, to be its new creative director.

Auckland, New Zealand – Public relations firm Mango Aotearoa has appointed three new agency members, namely Jullian Liang, who joins the digital and social team as an account manager, and Seren Cameron and Krystal Warren as account coordinators.

Skilled in multimedia design art direction and digital marketing, Liang was previously an event production coordinator and digital content developer at Auckland Unlimited. Meanwhile, Cameron and Warren are recent communications graduates.

Liang comes from Jakarta, Indonesia where he spent more than 10 years working across PR and event management for premium global brands, including H&M, Chanel and Coach.

For Claudia Macdonald, managing director at Mango Aotearoa, the agency is always looking to extend its digital and social capabilities.

“[Liang] brings an impressive mixture of digital expertise which will help us continue to deliver exceptional work for clients. He has already made a significant impact in his short time here demonstrating an ability to wear multiple hats, from photographer and video editor to social media expert and graphic designer. We’re thrilled to have him on board helping grow our integrated communications abilities,” Macdonald said.

She added, “Mango prides itself on supporting and nurturing fresh talent, particularly graduates and those new to the industry. We’re looking forward to helping Seren and Krystal kickstart their career.”

Sydney, Australia – Marketing agency M&C Saatchi Sydney has announced the additions to its creative team, namely Julian Lock, the new craft designer, Billie Gurr and Jake Rowland, the new junior art directors, as well as William Campion and Claire Kirby, the new junior copywriters.

Lock, who was a 2020 honour graduate of Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, has gained freelance design experience working for clients such as City Of Sydney, Darlinghurst Business Partnership, and ORDRE.com. He has also garnered experience as a freelance fashion photographer for brands like P.E Nation and the Australian Fashion Council. 

Meanwhile, Gurr, who is transferring from M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment, has fine-tuned the craft of solving brand problems with creative thinking and storytelling, allowing her to deliver successful campaigns such as ‘Have a Go’ by Australian Olympic Committee, ‘Pick Fresh Play Fresh’ by supermarket Woolworths, and ‘Just Change’ by Australian spring water brand Just Water, amongst others. While Rowland, who is a recent Award School Graduate with a background in design, has freelanced at Leo Burnett and Present Company. He is equipped to find unique and engaging ways to communicate brands’ messages.

Lastly, Campion, a recent law graduate and a recording artist for Sydney/LA-based record label, Future Classic, has freelanced at BMF and REBORN digital agency. He has completed three degrees, and is seeking to push himself creatively and intellectually, while Kirby has also freelanced at Leo Burnett and Present Company. She is a reformed commercial lawyer, and is well-acquainted with the art of distilling complex ideas into simple, easy to understand concepts.

Mandie van der Merwe, M&C Saatchi Sydney’s executive creative director, said, “Jake, Claire, Billie, Julian and Will are interesting thinkers, brimming with potential, who bring really different past experiences to the department. So we’re really excited to have them on board and we’re expecting them to knock it out the park.”

In December 2021, M&C Saatchi AUNZ has appointed new senior leaders, namely Shelley Parsons, the new executive creative director, and Ben O’Brien, the new deputy executive creative director, to drive the creative team of its dedicated agency for supermarket giant Woolworths in Australia, Greenhouse.

Australia – Global gametech company Livewire has appointed two new senior leaders, namely Adam Fischer, the new national commercial director for ANZ, and Chris Johnston, the head of gaming strategy for ANZ.

Fischer was most recently the national sales director of screen advertising supplier Val Morgan, where he played an important part in the success of global entertainment media brand Fandom in Australia and led the launch and growth of new publishing brands such as The Latch, POPSUGAR & Thrillist, and their local editions. Fischer was also the group head of sales at digital media and internet company Ziff Davis for 6 years, where he worked across global digital brands including IGN, Mashable, and PCMag.

Meanwhile, Johnston was previously the creative systems director at media agency MediaCom in Australia, where he has worked across clients such as Adidas, Mars, Dell, Alienware, NBC Universal, and Hasbro, amongst others. He has also held roles that combined strategic, content, media, and partnerships experience nationally. In his new role, Johnston will be working on a growing list of non-endemic brands investing in the gaming ecosystem and their gaming marketing strategies.

Fischer shared that there is a powerful arsenal in Livewire’s suite of products, including proprietary measurement tools, cookie-free data segments, top tier influencer access, and Australia‘s largest Gaming Ad Marketplace, with exclusive access to major in-game IP across Console, PC, and mobile. 

“The fact that Livewire has unlocked exclusive in-game inventory access to global metaverse powerhouse; Roblox, is testament to their credentials and an exciting step forward in connecting brands with the diverse gaming audiences,” said Fischer. 

Meanwhile, Johnston commented, “The opportunity to combine multiple passions of mine to a business and industry that is seeing incredible momentum is equal parts thrilling and the right kind of challenging. I look forward to driving the continued success of Livewire and the growth of its clients in the world of gaming.”

Indy Khabra and Brad Manuel, Livewire’s co-founders, see the hires as indicative of the demand the business is experiencing both in Australia and globally after expanding into EMEA and APAC.

“We are delighted to have them join the team representing excellence in strategy, service, and client growth. As brands and agencies prioritise gaming to capture attention and connect with the next generation of consumers whether by in-game advertising, content creators, or immersive experience in the metaverse; the addition of Chris and Adam will help us deliver gaming marketing and gametech solutions that marketers require,” said Khabra and Manuel.

Just recently, Livewire has announced its partnership with in-game advertising platform Anzu to help APAC advertisers reach Roblox players through blended in-game ad placements.