Tag: Dentsu

Singapore – Amazon’s live streaming service Twitch has announced that it has appointed two former Dentsu International heads Mandar Kambli and Sunil Yadav to be its newest leads for the APAC team. Kambli will join as Programmatic Enablement Lead, while Yadav will be assuming the role of Agency Development Lead.

In August, Twitch named a new marketing head for APAC, and the latest hires come as it continues to grow its team in Singapore and across the whole region.

Kambli comes to Twitch with 14 years of industry experience with agencies, ad tech, and publishers. He was with Dentsu from 2015-2019 where he led programmatic product, supply, and data initiatives across the region. He was most recently the head of advertising platforms for product listing app Carousell.

Meanwhile, Yadav brings with him 20 years of expertise across advertising, media planning, and digital communications. He was previously president of APAC at Dentsu’s media innovation and investment arm Amplifi where he managed media buying and media partnership. Notably, he built its programmatic agency Amnet, across 14 markets, and launched its content agency TheStoryLab in APAC. Prior to Dentsu, he worked with media agencies Mindshare and Starcom, and TV company Mediacom.

At Twitch, Kambli will be responsible for developing and supporting Twitch revenue growth across multiple regions and sharing his expertise on programmatic. With it, he will be helping enhance Twitch’s work with its customers and manage a number of key relationships. Yadav’s role, on the other hand, will charge him with the task of leading all agency partnership negotiations and relationships. He will help build upon Twitch’s success in other regions to help APAC brands and their media agency partners develop deeper relationships with the brand.

“Our pace hasn’t slowed since our last key hires in APAC, and we’re excited to bring key team members in Mandar and Sunil aboard,” said Steve Ford, vice president of Twitch for sales in APAC.

“As new users in APAC and across the world are continuing to come to Twitch, they’re finding their community and forming lasting bonds with creators. Our continued expansion will make for a better experience for these new users, as well as the brands that excite them. We’re planning even more big hires across APAC in 2020 and beyond, and look forward to taking exciting new steps in a number of markets here,” added Ford.

On the new role, Kambli said, “I’m excited to join Twitch during this period of unprecedented activity and growth in APAC. Twitch is multiplayer entertainment – it’s unique, interactive, live, and such an exciting place to be, whether you are a viewer, creator, advertiser, agency, partner, or anyone in between. And our goal is to work hand-in-hand with everyone to make the most of it.”

Meanwhile, Yadav commented, “On Twitch, everyone comes together to celebrate, learn, and grow their interests and passions, and I’m looking forward to helping agencies to learn about how to best work on Twitch to do new and exciting things. Gaming and live streaming are two areas where APAC’s audience and its passion are unparalleled, and we are just scratching the surface of the exciting new things that are possible for brands on Twitch’s platform.”

Twitch has also announced the start of its first salespeople based in Taiwan, providing a physical presence to support early inroads that Twitch has made with partners and organizations in the country. The new hires in Taiwan join the existing content and marketing teams in its office location.


Mumbai, India – Dentsu International has roped in Chief Data Officer and CEO of Dentsu Programmatic for South Asia Gautam Mehra to lead the APAC unit anew. He will be assuming the title Chief Data & Product Officer for the larger region.

The appointment comes as the marketing communications company moves to build a stronger and more unified APAC data and product offering across the network. Based in Mumbai, Gautam will report to Zhengda Shen, APAC president of Dentsu’s data-driven performance marketing agency Merkle.

Gautam joined Dentsu in 2013, where he later assumed the South Asia leadership three years after. In his recent role for the region, Gautam was responsible for driving the data quotient in the market both internally and with clients. Most notably, he led the unification of the Dentsu’s data sciences team and the team of programmatic marketing service Amnet to create Dentsu Programmatic.

Gautam also led the creation of Dentsu’s proprietary adtech product, the Dentsu Marketing Cloud ecosystem, which is a cohesive system that brings together a slew of Dentsu proprietary ecosystems such as the Facebook Marketing Partner (Ad-Tech) Badged DMC Explore, Dentsu Play, Dentsu TrueValue and other proprietary martech tools used in over 32 markets globally.

On the appointment, Ashish Bhasin, Dentsu Asia Pacific CEO said that data is central to the company’s business strategy as it ensures that advertising efforts are in the right direction.

“Having Gautam drive this data agenda for us is crucial in the era of data explosion. He has earned a reputation of developing and delivering highly innovative data-led initiatives while embodying the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurism. This is a well-deserved promotion and I look forward to working closely with him,” said Bhasin.

Merkle APAC president Zhengda Shen also commented, “Organizations are constantly challenged to evolve with agility and speed and adapt to ever-changing consumer dynamics. Providing leadership for clients by integrating data, media, content, and technology to navigate through this shifting landscape is a critical function of agencies. Gautam’s track record for driving innovations and developing globally scaled solutions makes him perfectly placed to help our clients in the region and to ensure that Dentsu International continues to lead through innovation.”

Meanwhile, Gautam, on his new role, said, “There are almost no limits to what we can uncover by studying consumer behavior and their interplay with brands. I’m excited to apply my leadership, knowledge, and experience in delivering globally adopted tech-driven products and solutions to further the data-driven culture of Dentsu International and to build the practice across APAC, further cementing our dominance in this area within the region in using cutting edge technology to solve everyday client challenges.”

Very recently, Dentsu announced its rebranding from Dentsu Aegis Network to now Dentsu International. The new brand will see the union of thousands of global employees under one Dentsu name.