Xu, who has been with JWT for three years, will report to Tom Doctoroff, JWT’s Greater China CEO and Northeast Asia area director.
Cheng will remain with JWT Beijing until the end of April to manage the transition. Xu will continue to spearhead the work on key clients — Yili, China Unicom and Lenovo, among others — alongside executive creative director Jordan Hsueh.
He has also been tasked with leading the agency into its next phase of integration with a focus on engagement planning.
“He’s instinctively integrated,” said Doctoroff. “We’re expecting him to really be the guy to pull all these aspects together in a media- neutral way, while maintaining the strengths of each individual unit.”
Prior to joining JWT, Xu worked on the client side with both Visa and Nabisco, and has also done stints with Ogilvy and TBWA.
“Firstly, we really need to improve our creativity, something which the industry needs to do as well,” said Xu.
