Ebiquity sets sights on Asia-Pacific

Ebiquity's Southeast Asia head Leela Nair is taking on an expanded remit overseeing Asia Pacific, as the media auditing and analytics firm looks to grow its presence in the region.

Nair has been leading the firm's Southeast Asia business as managing director for more than five years. Under Nair's leadership, the company claims it has become "the leading media consultancy in Southeast Asia", though consultancies with larger staff such as R3 dispute that. 

She joined the company in 2015 from Mindshare, where she was Singapore managing director for more than two years. Nair has a two decade-long career in the Asia-Pacific advertising industry, holding management positions at GroupM, Universal McCann, Zenith and OMD across Singapore and Australia. She has advised some of the world’s largest advertisers including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle, Coca-Cola, J&J, GSK and Visa.

Ebiquity chief executive Nick Waters, who was appointed to the role in April, said Nair will "further develop our business in Asia Pacific". 

"The region is highly dynamic, fast moving, and home to two thirds of the world’s population, and represents a strong growth opportunity for our company," he said. "I can think of no-one better to lead our growth in the region."

Nair said she was "delighted" to have the opportunity to expand on what the company has achieved in Southeast Asia to the wider Asia Pacific region.

Her promotion follows the departure of the company's China lead D. Sriram two weeks ago. Sriram was first appointed in 2017 as managing director of Ebiquity in China, and then "stepped back from day-to-day management" in October last year, taking up a chairman role. He announced his departure from the firm mid-September on LinkedIn.

The independent media auditing and analytics company has benefited this year from Accenture's retreat from media auditing. It revealed last month it had picked up 20 clients from Accenture since the consulting giant announced it was quitting its media auditing practice in February. Accenture ceased involvement on 31 August, the end of the consulting giant’s financial year.

Ebiquity's 20 new clients cover up to 40 markets and were worth £5 million (US$6.5 million) on an annualised basis, the company has said. They included BMW, Daimler, Orange, Unilever and Walgreens.