Tag: General Manager

Melbourne, Australia – Creative agency BMF has announced that Richard Woods, former head of account management, and Aisling Colley, former deputy head of account management, have been elevated to the roles of general managers to continue the agency’s growth trajectory.

Woods, who was promoted to head of account management in 2020, joined the Enero Group over six years ago. During his tenure at BMF, Woods has delivered award-winning campaigns during his time at the agency, including for TAL Life Insurance.

Speaking about his appointment, he said, “I’ve been lucky enough to work for two amazing companies within the Enero Group, and while the merger between BMF and Naked was always an exciting opportunity, I wasn’t expecting it to be the most enjoyable years of my career to date.” 

He added, “I found an agency with values they truly demonstrate, a leadership team which balances ambition with empathy, and a team of amazingly talented people that cares so much about the work. I’ve loved every minute and long may it continue in this new role alongside Ais.” 

Meanwhile, Colley has been at BMF for over 10 years, successfully climbing the ranks to deputy head of account management in 2020. For the past four years, Colley has led one of the industry’s most coveted accounts, ALDI.

Speaking on her appointment, she said, “I’m grateful to have been with BMF throughout most of its life and I have to say we’re in a time where it’s never been better. BMF continually produces world-class work, has a key focus for people development and happens to be home to some of the best humans on this planet. I’m absolutely thrilled to be appointed general manager and can’t wait to get stuck into it when I return later in the year.”

Stephen McArdle, CEO at BMF Australia, said, “Over their combined 16 years at BMF, Aisling and Rich have been integral to the growth of our business, our people, and our clients. They don’t just have the talent and heart to make incredible things happen, but they have the guts and kindness to keep building BMF and our culture.”

Manila, Philippines – Tealive, Southeast Asia’s leading lifestyle tea brand, has announced its market expansion to the Philippines, and has appointed Mike Dumaual as its general manager.

Born in 2017, Tealive has quickly grown to over 700 outlets worldwide. With the establishment of the brand’s first store in Manila, specifically at SM Jazz Mall in Makati, Tealive is ready to serve Filipinos with their own milk tea lineup, leading with Tealive’s signature Aren Palm Sugar Series.

In a statement to MARKETECH APAC, Dumaual said that in his role as Tealive’s country general manager, he will be focusing on store network expansion and brand development to aggressively grow the brand.

Dumaual was recently the marketing director of Mang Inasal, a barbecue fast food chain under the Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC) portfolio. He told MARKETECH APAC that in his many years working in the QSR industry, trends have changed regarding how the industry moves.

“The biggest change would be the pivot from on-premise transactions (i..e, dine-in) to off-premise transactions (i..e, delivery, self pick-up, etc). So, for a business to survive, they have to be present in all channels,” he said.

Speaking about his appointment, Dumaual said, “I’m truly excited to lead Tealive’s grand entry into the Philippine market, knowing how milk tea-crazy this country is. The ambition is not just to make it a milk tea player but a major and respected F&B lifestyle brand that Filipinos will love.”

He also told MARKETECH APAC, “The opportunity is that customers can now decide anywhere on what to drink/eat, so the brand must be ready to take advantage of that opportunity by adopting an omnichannel approach that caters to the current needs of the market where speed and convenience are critical.”

Singapore – Direct-to-consumer streaming platform HBO Max has named Jason Monteiro as its newest general manager for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Through the new role, Monteiro will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer business, leading content experience, brand, marketing, subscriber management, digital partnerships and data analytics.

He will be temporarily reporting to Johannes Larcher, head of HBO Max International, until a new managing director for the broader INSEAK region (India, Southeast Asia and Korea) is appointed.

With extensive OTT leadership experience across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, Monteiro will also oversee the existing HBO GO streaming service and the eventual launch of HBO Max in the region, building and leading a team of cross-functional executives to maximize the streamer’s success.

Prior to joining HBO Max, he was the director of AVOD at Shahid, a leading Arabic content streaming platform. Prior to Shahid, he was the general manager of Indonesia and Malaysia for iflix, and he also ran marketing as the company’s chief marketing officer. He has also held leadership roles at a number of telecommunications companies across Southeast Asia and the Middle East, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

Speaking about his appointment, he said, “I could not be more excited to be joining this amazing organization and in particular to lead the charge for HBO Max. It’s going to be such a thrill to work with the people across WarnerMedia to bring the likes of ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Harry Potter,’ DC, Warner Bros., HBO favorites, new Max Originals and many more, to the viewers in Southeast Asia.”

Meanwhile, Larcher commented, “Jason arrives at HBO Max with a proven track record of building and growing subscription services across Asia and other important global markets. He’s a passionate leader known for building and inspiring high-performing teams, and I’m eager to see his leadership in action as he steps into his new role today.”

Sydney, Australia – Social and influencer agency One Green Bean (OGB) has announced its newest leadership promotions within the agency, with Amber Abbott being promoted to general manager, while Mary Proulx becoming head of social and influence.

In their new roles, Abbott takes responsibility for leading the agency, including managing new business and client services across all OGB offerings, and driving agency culture and employee development. Meanwhile, Proulx will lead both the social team and the influencer marketing team at OGB, known as Co-maker. Her remit will be to build on the social and influencer offering with a focus on social strategy, cultural insights, content production and paid social.

Prior to her new role, Abbott was OGB’s head of client services. She began her career as a publicist at Torstar Communications a decade ago, before spending three years in account management roles at London’s The Clear Agency.

Proulx, on the other hand, started out her career as social media director at Red Havas in 2017, and was promoted to group account director in March this year. She joined the Havas Village from her role as social media director at Isentia Strategy & Content, formerly known as King Content, after beginning her agency career in Canada in account roles at PR and communications outfit North Strategic.

Simone Gupta, CEO Havas PR Australia, said, “One Green Bean is a business with creative ideas and a unique agency culture built into its DNA, so it is fantastic to promote from within two talented people who live these values.”

Sydney, Australia – Independent advertising agency The Hallway has announced the launch of its newest performance marketing division called The Hallway Performance Digital (THPD). It will be focused on creative content optimized for direct response digital channels.

The new division will offer performance creative development, social content production, paid media strategy and buying as well as reporting frameworks.

THPD has developed a proprietary model that determines clients’ growth programs based on their level of investment. These programs are mapped out and tested models for ideal results, based on previous commercial success across customer bases. 

Speaking about the new division, Jules Hall, CEO at The Hallway, said that by launching the new division, they get to have the best of breed offerings, optimized to client’s unique context, as well as supported with the efficiency of a single back office infrastructure at the group level.

“The Hallway was an early mover in data-driven creative content. Having run major programs for the likes of ANZ, Google and Dexus we’ve built a really deep understanding of the best ways to create this type of work. It’s a rapid turnaround, highly automated creative process. This is very different to the strategically-led brand and advertising work we are creating,” Hall said.

To mark the new division, The Hallway has promoted Chris Murphy to the role of general manager of THPD, where he will manage the independent agency’s existing digital media clients as well as a soon to be announced payment platform and automotive brand.

Murphy has been with The Hallway for two years, holding senior leadership roles, managing and growing some of the agency’s largest clients.

“I am also delighted to be able to promote from within. Chris has consistently demonstrated strong leadership and is ideally placed to ensure THPD, and the clients we represent, will thrive,” Hall said about the new promotion.

Speaking about his promotion, Murphy said, “I’m delighted to have been entrusted to lead our team of digital-first thinkers. The proprietary and proven growth programs we have developed empower brands to see around corners and make more informed strategic marketing decisions. The outcome is high performance results, delivered with speed and efficiency.”

Singapore – GrowthOps, a marketing technology company, has made strategic appointments to strengthen its teams in the Southeast Asia region, namely David Isaac Mathews as chief growth officer for the Southeast Asian region, Shaad Hamid as general manager for Singapore, and Chris Greenough as general manager for Malaysia. 

Between Singapore and Malaysia, Hamid and Greenough will oversee a diverse team of some 200 professionals, in highly sought-after technology, user experience, creative, consulting, and marketing roles.

Prior to joining GrowthOps, Mathews was an innovation co-lead for ASEAN at EY-Parthenon’s TAS Digital, wherein he delivered digital transformation and strategy projects across a range of industries, covering business design and monetization for clients. Aside from his new role at GrowthOps, he is a mentor for Deep Technology Commercialization: formerly at Lean LaunchPad Singapore, and currently at the NUS Research Innovation Programme (GRIP) program.

“Driving growth increasingly requires regular innovation at the intersection of product and marketing strategy; our multi-disciplinary consulting and implementation teams are assembled to support that. At GrowthOps, we are guided by the customer experience and journey, and our aim is to implement the marketing technology needed to bring data-driven decision-making to the C-suite. Comprehensive marketing strategy and full-funnel marketing are the cornerstone of our best-practice methodologies, based on the learnings of what top-quartile CMO’s do to build, launch and grow,” David said regarding his appointment.

Meanwhile, Hamid’s past experience started off with DigitasLBi in Dubai, UAE as a senior account manager and then as SEO director, working on clients such as Etihad and Johnson & Johnson. He first joined GrowthOps in 2017 as the regional head of growth marketing services for Southeast Asia, a role he continues to hold up to this day alongside his new role.

“I am delighted to take up the role of GrowthOps Singapore’s General Manager, leading this brilliant team of people who bring passion, innovation, and diversity of thinking to work every day. I am incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved so far, and we are all excited about our next phase of growth. We continue to be client-focused, hungry to create amazing work, and humbled by our responsibility to shape the future of marketing in our region – in partnership with our visionary clients,” Hamid stated.

Lastly, Greenough started off his career with FutureLab in 2011, where he was part of the founding team that would go on to become GrowthOps Malaysia after a series of acquisitions. Then in 2015, he co-founded Hyperlab, an enterprise Conversational AI startup that was acquired by global Customer Experience firm, Everise. At Everise, he was elevated to Chief Marketing Officer, where he led the rebranding of multiple acquisitions and repositioned Everise from a traditional call center into a leading digital customer experience outsourcing firm. 

“My combined agency, startup and enterprise CMO experience gives me a well rounded perspective of the challenges leaders in various stages of growth and transformation encounter. Throughout my career I’ve blended the use of technology with creative marketing to build effective customer experiences. This is the working practice knowledge I bring to GrowthOps, which I hope will benefit our employees and customers,” he said regarding his new position.

Speaking about the new hires, Chee Hung Goon, CEO at GrowthOps Asia, commented, “Businesses today are rapidly evolving through digital transformation, but sustaining growth is difficult because the traditional ways of reaching a customer are no longer as impactful. We are growing, because our partners are gaining confidence from our ability to identify where their customers are, and how best to reach and retain them on digital platforms.”

Melbourne, Australia – Keep Left, a local independent agency, has appointed former general manager at advertising company Proximity Worldwide Germany, Mike Doman, to be its newest general manager, under the creative and content division.

He will be leading the agency with responsibilities for strategic planning, digital, social, content and creative. Along with the broader management team, he will be responsible for the growth and continued evolution of Keep Left’s creative offering, which has grown under ECD Blair Kimber’s leadership on key clients such as ANZ, Openpay, and Charter Hall.

During his time at Proximity Worldwide, he helped shape the agency’s digital, experience, media, social and technology teams, while overseeing a client portfolio including Porsche, Amazon and Unilever. Prior to this, he also spent six years at CHE Proximity in Melbourne in a mix of strategic and creative roles, working across clients including Telstra, Mazda and Latitude Financial.

Speaking about his appointment, Doman said, “Keep Left is an agency with a huge ambition and the team has the talent to deliver on the vision. The opportunity for independent agencies in Australia is huge right now and – more than ever for advertising and content work – the need to earn attention, and not just pay for it, has never been more important.”

He added, “Keep Left’s heritage in earned media and PR – when combined with a crazy smart team that is experienced in advertising, editorial and digital – puts the agency in a front row seat to make seriously impactful work. The team is also genuinely nice, which is a major bonus.”

For his new role at Keep Left, he returns to Australia after working in Germany.

Caroline Catterall, CEO at Keep Left, commented that Doman is thoroughly energized by the challenge of shaping and building agencies, hence they couldn’t be more excited to have him join the team at this important time on embarking on a new three-year strategy.

“Mike’s breadth of experience across strategy and creative, and an understanding of PR and content marketing from early in his career, made him the standout candidate for us. The stars really aligned that he was planning to return to Australia and we’d built the business to a point where it presented the right opportunity for him,” Catterall said.

Hong Kong – Advertising and marketing agency Grey in Hong Kong has announced four new promotions across their local team namely (from left to right) Desmond Li as regional business partner, Duffy Lau as general manager, Winky To as regional business partner, and Owen Smith as chief strategy officer.

In his new elevated role, Li will continue to grow and expand Grey HK’s travel and hospitality sector across the APAC and Greater China regions. He joined the agency in 2017 as a senior account director working with the P&G Downy and Whisper team, and later transitioned to lead both the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the Marriott International accounts of the agency. 

Meanwhile, Lau joined Grey in 2014 as an associate account director and has worked closely with multiple client brands and played an instrumental role in leading the business’ growth, especially in China.

“Duffy is a game-changer with entrepreneurial leadership skills and a vision for business growth both for our clients and for our studio. I have great confidence that along with our strong management team, we will reach even greater heights,” said Adam O’Conor, CEO at Grey Group Hong Kong and chief client officer at Grey Group AMEA.

Speaking about his appointment, Lau stated, “I am happy to take on this new challenge, especially at a place I call home (Grey HK). I truly believe in change and whenever there is a challenge, there is a new opportunity for us to grow better and stronger. Together with Adam and our leadership team, I am confident we can leverage on our talent and capabilities and take the studio to the next level.”

To joined GREY Shanghai in 2014 as business director working on the Volvo and HSBC accounts, before moving to Grey Hong Kong as business partner, leading the HSBC team. She has been credited with deepening the agency’s relationship from B2B to now include branding, insurance, and asset management.

Meanwhile, Smith joined Grey in 2017 as head of strategy and has since built up a team that has consistently driven famously effective work, brought thought leadership to Grey clients and raised the profile and the value of the group’s strategic capabilities. With his breadth of local and global responsibilities, he has provided valuable strategic contributions helping to fuel growth for Grey HK’s key clients such as HSBC, HKTB and P&G across the region.

“There is nothing more satisfying than promoting talent from within to key leadership roles. Personal growth should be as much a focus for an agency as commercial growth, and these four promotions underscore that loyalty, curiosity and a passion for our clients will always be the key to success for people of Grey,” O’Conor added.

Sydney, Australia – Experience improvement (XI) solutions company InMoment has appointed Mehul Nagrani as the company’s new general manager for AI product and technology. He brings in extensive experience in leveraging machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to deliver artificial intelligence (AI) products and technology that operationalize experience data to drive better business decisioning.

He was most recently the founder and CEO of Fokal AI, an AI automation company and platform for ML applications. Prior to Fokal, he also served as the EVP and general manager, digital for Univision Communications where he transformed the division including its technology stack, personnel, products and overall financial performance. He was an engagement manager for McKinsey & Company, and an IC design engineer for Micron and Intel.

Nagrani’s appointment follows the recently announced acquisition of Lexalytics, a provider of cloud and on-premise natural language processing and machine learning. The Lexalytics technology team will report to Mehul, and he will report to Andrew Joiner, InMoment CEO.

For Joiner, Nagrani’s appointment comes at a significant time of growth and investment for the company, adding that when they introduced the idea of experience improvement last September and challenged the industry to do more, they did so with the knowledge that acting on data is paramount. 

“Experiences are changing every day, and expectations are dynamic. Our vision of AI is to offer faster progress and improved decision making by automating tasks that can easily be facilitated through technology. We are tuning our approach to the tasks of CX professionals to give them more scale,” Joiner stated.

Speaking about his appointment, Nagrani commented, “InMoment has consistently been recognised not only for its future-proof vision but also its ability to execute on that vision. I was drawn to InMoment largely because of its comprehensive vision, innovative approach and caliber of talent.”

He added, “While already an industry-leader, accelerating the advancement of AI-based technology that leverages all types and forms of data, will help InMoment and our customers better deliver on the promise of experience improvement. I look forward to working with the combined InMoment and Lexalytics teams to accelerate this progress.” 

InMoment has also recently appointed Eric Weight as its VP of solutions consulting for APAC.

Singapore – Global adtech company The Trade Desk has appointed former Google’s head of advertising agencies partnerships for APAC Rajesh Sheshadri as the new general manager for Southeast Asia, where he will be leading the company’s business and growth strategy in Southeast Asia, with a focus on building agency, client relations and industry partnerships.

He brings in more than 20 years of media and advertising technology experience in Asia-Pacific.

Aside from his role at Google, Sheshadri was the general manager for Hong Kong and APAC vice president of advertising sales for Fox Network Group.

“The industry is at an inflection point, where increasingly, marketers are seeking greater impact from their media strategies and looking to work with partners who are open and transparent. In addition, the growth of Free Ad Supported TV (FAST) has driven publishers to find the right value for their content,” Sheshadri said regarding his appointment.

He added, “This is a small indicator of the enormous value that The Trade Desk brings to the region. I am delighted to be a part of this organisation that is committed to building a better media ecosystem for everyone.”

Sheshadri will report to Mitch Waters, senior vice president for Southeast Asia, India, Australia and New Zealand at The Trade Desk.

“Rajesh’s deep industry experience in broadcast will be a valuable asset as we continue to connect brands to the immense opportunities offered by the fast-changing world of streaming TV. While consumers in Southeast Asia are exponentially increasing their digital time, only a relatively small portion of advertisers’ media budgets is spent on digital channels,” Waters stated.

He added, “We are here to help brands make the right investment decisions that align with consumers’ changing habits, and Rajesh will play a critical role in leading our business in this area.”

The Trade Desk has also recently expanded their operations in India, and has appointed Tejinder Gill as its general manager as he will be leading the company’s business and growth strategy in India.