The IPG network has recruited Somyot Chairat from the Bangkok office to run McCann Indonesia, which has been without a country head since the departure of Jan Gerits last year.
Mark Ingrouille (pictured), McCann’s Southeast Asia area director, said: “It was a really hard decision for me to lose Somyot from Bangkok but I see this as a real career opportunity for him to grow personally and with McCann Worldgroup.”
Mark Ingrouille (pictured), McCann’s Southeast Asia area director, said: “It was a really hard decision for me to lose Somyot from Bangkok but I see this as a real career opportunity for him to grow personally and with McCann Worldgroup.”
Somyot’s appointment is a rare move for a Thai national, who takes on the role of managing director. In his previous role he was MD of Universal McCann, managing partner of Retail Momentum and Worldgroup’s chief integration officer.
He joins the Jakarta office with a brief to develop the agency’s disciplines, MRM and McCann Healthcare in particular.
Somyot will team up with Gautam Mehta, who joins from Grey Malaysia as executive creative director.
However, in Vietnam, McCann’s progress has stuttered following the retreat of a planned equity deal with domestic ad agency Golden Communications.
Client conflict and staff issues are believed to have played a role, although McCann remains closely aligned to Golden through a strategic alliance with media sibling, Universal McCann.
