Tag: Chief Client Officer

Singapore – IPG Mediabrands has confirmed the appointment of James Hawkins to the newly-created position of chief client officer at IPG Mediabrands APAC.

“IPG Mediabrands remain focused on delivering innovative and exceptional client experiences in a rapidly evolving media landscape. We are excited to deploy James’ in-depth knowledge and transformative experience across the Asia-Pacific region,” Leigh Terry, CEO at IPG Mediabrands APAC said.

Hawkins was most recently the chief executive officer of PHD in Asia-Pacific, and held the role from October 2018 to October 2024, when he recently stepped down.

He was also previously the managing director of dentsu X in Asia-Pacific, and also held other C-Suite positions for dentsu across Asia-Pacific.

His appointment comes after Omnicom Group has confirmed that its board of directors have unanimously approved a definitive agreement pursuant to which Omnicom will acquire Interpublic Group (IPG) in a stock-for-stock transaction.

Singapore – Dentsu has appointed Prerna Mehrotra into the newly-created role of chief client officer for Asia-Pacific. This adds up to Mehrotra’s existing role as chief executive office role for media in APAC.

In this newly created role for the region, Prerna will focus on designing and delivering an elevated client experience across dentsu’s services in creative, media and customer experience management (CXM). 

She also continues her responsibility of overseeing the group’s leading media brands Carat, dentsu X and iProspect, working closely with her leadership team, global and local market teams to deliver value across the media ecosystem on behalf of clients.

Speaking on her added role, Mehrotra said, “Partnering with clients has been the essence of my journey in this industry. In the last two decades, I’ve worked with a diverse mix of clients across many verticals and markets including Singapore, China and India. I find real joy in understanding a client’s business challenge and collaborating with them to solve for these challenges.” 

She added, “One thing has always been clear – my commitment to put forward the best of my agency’s expertise in creating a competitive advantage for the brands I work with. I can’t wait to continue this journey, pooling together the best talent, capabilities and thought leadership to drive excellence for the clients we work with.”

Meanwhile, Rob Gilby, CEO for APAC at dentsu said: “Prerna joined dentsu in 2016 as our Head of Investment and has continued to show her star quality, working across division and clients. This appointment is huge testament to Prerna’s tenacity and growth mindset. She consistently demonstrates outstanding leadership and understanding of the changing client and consumer landscape, innovating products and services to capitalise on new opportunities for growth. I look forward to working close

India – With its commitment to maintaining growth and maximising business outcomes for clients, marketing communications agency Wunderman Thompson South Asia has promoted Raji Ramaswamy as its chief growth officer and Joy Chauhan as its chief client officer. They will report to Shams Jasani, chief executive officer at Wunderman Thompson South Asia. 

Ramaswamy will retain her CEO role at Contract India, Wunderman Thompson India’s group company and Chauhan will simultaneously work as a managing partner of Wunderman Thompson in Delhi.

In their new role, Ramaswamy and Chauhan will lead strategic growth for the group, focusing on new business and key clients across the region. They will also oversee client retention and business development, nurture teams of talent and drive strategic growth initiatives including the development of new client services and capabilities.

Ramaswamy brings with her over 25 years of experience in marketing and brand management. During her stint in Contract India, she maintained its vision to create the most integrated agency model for the future with a seamless multi-dimensional structure. 

Meanwhile, Chauhan brings with him experience in managing people across multiple business units. In his stint at Wunderman Thompson Delhi, he was responsible for driving the growth of the agency’s brands, people and business.

CEO Jasani said that Ramaswamy and Chauhan’s appointments come at a perfect timing when the agency can drive good impact for clients and business whilst delivering transformational work that builds Wunderman’s capabilities in creative, data, tech, and commerce.

“With India as one of our fastest growing markets and being uniquely poised to provide integrated solutions to our clients, we are on an ambitious growth trajectory with Raji and Joy as enablers to chart the best course for the next growth phase,” Jasani added.

This month, Wunderman Thompson also elevated Gavin Bain as its chief executive officer for Australia.

Australia – Research company Ipsos has announced the appointment of its long-time global executive Hamish Munro as the new CEO for APAC, and current CEO for SEA Suresh Ramalingam as the new chief client officer for APAC. 

Munro moves into his new remit after three years as Ipsos’ global head of interactive devices. Since joining the company in 2013, he has also had stints as CEO of Australia and New Zealand (2013 – 2015), CEO of SEA (2016 – 2017), and CEO of APAC operations (2017 – 2019). 

In his new role, Munro is set to bring broad international operational and research management experience, along with more than two decades of diverse market research and leadership. He will also be replacing current Ipsos APAC CEO, Christophe Cambournac, who will move into a global role with the business. 

Meanwhile, Ramalingam moves into his new role after four years as CEO for Ipsos’ SEA markets. Prior to joining Ipsos, he spent more than 20 years at Nielsen, working across its emerging markets in various leadership roles, and the most recent one as managing director of consumer insights across LATAM, EMEA and South-East Asia, based in Dubai. 

In his new remit, Ramalingam will be leading the client organisation for Ipsos’ APAC region and will be based in Kuala Lumpur. 

Commenting on his new role, Munro said “I am excited to collaborate with my colleagues across Asia Pacific and continue to build on our strong client partnerships, building and strengthening our talent and deploying many of our new services to help our clients grow.”

Meanwhile, Ramalingam also said, “Our strong client organisation teams help drive engagement with our key clients in Asia Pacific collaborating across our services to provide the best possible research outcomes catering to their business needs. I am very excited to continue to focus on building client relationships across Asia Pacific.” 

Ben Page, Ipsos’ CEO, said that Munro and Ramalingam were set to bring a wealth of industry experience and corporate knowledge to their new roles. 

He further shared, “Hamish has been an integral part of the global Ipsos team since 2013, sharing his 25-plus years [of] experience in market research, marketing, communications and account management roles.”

“Suresh has already shown his ability to grow and manage client relationships across Southeast Asia, delivering on our long-term growth plans for the region. In his new role, I’m confident that his client and people-focused leadership style coupled with his extensive research and management experience will help in leading the client organisation successfully in our APAC region,” added Page.

Taipei, Taiwan – Dentsu International has announced key appointments in its branch in Taiwan namely Tomonori Inasaka as chief transformation officer and Taku Ozaki as chief client officer for Japanese business. 

The new appointments are part of its business operations transformation to strategise and streamline its teaming platforms for client services and future innovative business model solutions.

With 25-years’ experience in media and communication, Inasaka joined Dentsu Inc. in 2012 where he helped drive the growth in product development for dentsu X. Prior to joining dentsu Taiwan, he was the representative officer at Dentsu Group Inc. London office since August 2017, where he was responsible for business development opportunities and client servicing between dentsu Japan and dentsu International at EMEA and global level.

Speaking on his appointment, he said, “Taiwan is always recognized as one of the focused key markets in the dentsu group. I am incredibly honoured for the opportunity to be part of this big family. As part of the business transformation, I will be working with the management team closely to develop various business initiatives with upcoming projects in the pipeline and leverage on my cross-regional experiences in Japan, APAC and EMEA to meet with the growing business needs in the Taiwanese market.”

Meanwhile, with over 20 years in the business development and account management for both International and Japanese clients, Ozaki joined dentsu Inc. in 2004 where he was responsible for the dentsu client network expansion across Japan and its overseas account servicing division. He was also a former general manager for the client servicing team in the business producers division for Dentsu Inc.

“Japanese enterprises have always placed a priority on the Taiwanese market, and with my extensive experience in business development and client servicing, I hope to develop more strategic partnerships and continue to expand our footprint in the market,” Ozaki said regarding his appointment.

Jennifer Tang, CEO of dentsu Taiwan, commented “Dentsu is constantly striving for breakthroughs in transformation and leading the industry forward. We are actively recruiting experts in the field and cultivating talents both locally and globally to implement the dentsu client-centric model while developing the areas of sustainability, Metaverse and CXM. With the addition of Mr Inasaka and Mr Ozaki to the dentsu Taiwan leadership team, I am confident that we will be able to continue to build on our organisational transformation to deliver operational excellence and business performance.”

Bangalore, India – HiveMinds Innovative Market Solutions, the full-service digital marketing and consultancy firm by Madison World, has appointed Saurabh Tyagi, former vice president of Madison World’s media agency Madison Media, to be its new chief client officer.

Tyagi is a seasoned media professional who has over 18 years of experience across India and SEA. He has worked with brands such as Unilever, Nestle, and Titan, as well as Vodafone, among others. Tyagi also played diverse roles in Publicis and Group M, which includes media planning across offline and online, content strategy, and client servicing.

In his new role, Tyagi will be leading HiveMinds’ enterprise clients, helping to power the company’s growth in the coming years.

Commenting on his appointment, Tyagi said “I have always admired HiveMinds for their work across startups and MNCs alike. I am happy to be joining this high-energy team and look forward to delivering value to our clients.”

Meanwhile, Jyothirmayee JT, HiveMinds’ founder and CEO, believes that with Tyagi’s experience, they can now further partner with clients in thinking beyond digital marketing and work towards comprehensive marketing and growth strategy. 

“Saurabh has joined us at a time when digital transformation is at its peak in India and we’re expanding all-around – in teams, in new geographies, and in clients across industries,” said JT.

Sam Balsara, Madison World’s chairman, said, “With Saurabh’s movement, we can confidently assure our clients of delivering a holistic digital media strategy.”

Just recently, HiveMinds has announced its expansion in Delhi-NCR with a new office in Gurugram, which will be spearheaded by Mohit Grower, the head of the new north branch.

Singapore – Grey Group, the advertising company has announced that Sarah Trombetta returns to WPP/Grey as the new chief client officer for the Procter & Gamble (P&G) account in Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA). Her appointment takes effect on 22 November, 2021.

Trombetta will be in charge of establishing the strategic direction of the P&G business across key regions, leading the integrated strategies and creative ambitions for its iconic brands to build on Grey’s strength as a high performing partner.

She formerly served the agency as CEO of Grey Hong Kong from 2015 to 2019, before moving to Red Havas in Australia as CEO. Under her tenure as Grey HK’s CEO, the agency transformed its end-to-end digital marketing services solutions for Greater China’s largest clients, bringing social commerce, advertising, retail and activation together to deliver growth for many global brands, including P&G.

Speaking about her appointment, she said, “It’s an honor to step up and take the baton from such a revered industry titan. This role brings together an irresistible blend of diverse business markets, iconic global brands and the chance to reunite with world-class talent who I have always known to bring a lot of heart to the work and each other.”

She further added, “I could never have imagined that business leadership of this scale would be possible from ‘home’, so I hope it inspires talent to dream big about the impact they can have in shaping a new post-pandemic chapter together.”

As the chief client officer for P&G in AMEA, Trombetta will be working closely with Nirvik Singh, president international and global COO at Grey Group; and Debby Reiner, president for Grey Global Clients and business leadership for P&G at WPP.

“We are beyond thrilled to welcome Sarah back. She is an awarded agency leader, who has had success building global brands in multiple countries, and her track record for transformation and growth is highly impressive. Sarah is a client-focused business leader and strategic thinker who inspires with her energy and vision,” Singh said.

He added, “I am confident she will lean into the changes on how brands go-to-market across key regions, drawing on our talent and capabilities. Sarah’s skill as a collaborator within a global business will further amplify the success of Grey’s borderless strategy and our famously effective work.”

Trombetta takes over the position from Yashaswini Samat, a 28-year Grey veteran who will continue to help support the business transition till the end of the year. 

“I would also like to extend my gratitude to Yash, who is leaving an outstanding legacy. An experienced and well-respected business leader, she has worked in diverse markets and has taken on several senior roles whilst at Grey. She has made a big impact throughout our network and inspired the next generation of Grey P&G leadership. I wish to thank her for all her hard work, mentorship, guidance and loyalty through the years and wish her well in all her future endeavors,” Singh added.