The new rejig sees the departure of regional head of strategy and North Asia deputy MD Neil Cotton, along with regional planner Oliver Cartwright. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, Henry Chan departs as MD and CEO of the Lowe office after more than 15 years with the agency.
Chan is expected to be succeeded by senior Lowe Taiwan executive Gary Chi, who will take on a GM role at the agency, sharing leadership responsibilities with existing ECD Rae Yu.
In Hong Kong, the agency has reportedly suffered a number of departures — although a source familiar with the situation said that any attrition was a result of Lowe’s back-office integration with its sister IPG agencies.
A similar situation is expected in Taiwan, with Lowe poised to move in with either McCann Erickson or DraftFCB in that market.
In China, meanwhile, new chairman and CEO Kitty Lun has made the first significant moves of her three-month old leadership by initiating a series of new appointments at the agency. Raymond Wu joins the agency as head of strategy, after stints at PepsiCo, Bates and McCann Erickson.
In addition, Sanjai Srivastava has been promoted to the role of head of business management, six months after joining Lowe China from Lowe India.
T Krishna is also promoted to regional director of planning for Lowe Greater China, which includes planning for all of the agency’s Unilever Homecare portfolio.
In addition, Lowe Hong Kong creative director Emma Chan will expand her role to provide senior creative support to Lowe Shanghai, and support the latter office’s business development.
“The appointments we are making reflect the contribution that truly talented and dynamic individuals can make to driving the agenda of ‘new Lowe’ ahead as we focus the agency on building high-value ideas for our clients,” said Lun in a statement.
“These moves take place at the top of the year as we plan further development of Lowe China.”
Cotton departs the agency 18 months after joining from BatesAsia, a casualty of Lowe’s elimination of its regional layer of management across Asia.
Last year, Lowe restructured its global operations around creative hubs that report directly into global HQ. In Asia, those hubs are Shanghai, Bangkok and India.
