Move and win roundup: JWT, WE, Omnicom, McCann, O&M, more

PEOPLE MOVES

J. Walter Thompson Asia Pacific appointed Sylvia Leong as Asia Pacific Director of Human Resources. She joins from Kennametal Inc, where she led a regional HR team.

Omnicom Media Group Australia appointed Kristiaan Kroon as chief investment officer, following the promotion of Tony Harradine to chief investment officer OMG Asia Pacific. Kroon joins from Fairfax Media, where he was the national agency sales and commercial partnerships director.

Media intelligence firm Isentia named Matthew Stanton as the new global chief executive officer of content marketing agency King Content.  Formerly the CEO at Bauer Media Group, Stanton will assume his new role in February, taking charge of King Content’s growth in Asia-Pacific, North America and Europe. 

Francis Wee (黄培兴) joined Ogilvy & Mather in Singapore as executive creative director. Wee was previously at the same agency in Shanghai from 2012 to 2014, after which he worked on a project basis. He is now charged with driving the Singapore office’s creative agenda. 

FTI Consulting appointed Nan Dong (董雪南) as senior director in its Hong Kong strategic communications division, while Christine Wood and Tom Evrard were promoted to senior managing director. 

WE Communications bolstered its digital and technology offerings by hiring Sophia Hsu (许蕙薪) as regional technology account director in Shanghai, and Damian Pang (彭治源) as senior digital strategist in Hong Kong. Hsu arrives from Golin, while Pang joins from Social@Ogilvy. 

PROI Worldwide strengthened its global crisis team in APAC. This meant Lena Soh, managing partner at Huntington Communications, became chairperson of the APAC crisis group, and Neil Green, CEO at SenateSHJ, was named vice chairman of the APAC crisis group. 

Ibraheem Youssef, a creative director at J. Walter Thompson Hong Kong who worked on Mattel, as well as Ferrero through Mirum Hong Kong, has left the company.

Sean Fitzpatrick was given the content and P&L responsibilities at Edipresse Media Asia for his role as chief content officer and managing director of its Hong Kong operations. He will be leading the development of the Tatler brand in Asia. He was the publisher’s chief creative officer previously, supervising all creative content and special projects.

Alann Lopez was appointed as chief operations officer of Omnicom Media Group Sri Lanka. He had previously worked with Grant McCann, Masters DDB, Lowe LDB (now Mullen Lowe) and later founded his own agency 5th Elephant.

McCann promoted two senior executives in its Guangzhou office: Szeman Cheng (郑思敏), formerly general manager, to managing director; Angela Guo (郭兰芬), formerly group account director, to take over Cheng’s old role as the new general manager.

Terry Pan (彭偉聰) jumped ship to the client-side as brand director at Envision Energy, one of the top turbine companies in China. Prior to this, he served as the head of creative for Verystar-Linked by Isobar for a short three months for clients including Pizza Hut and Uniqlo.

BUSINESS WINS

MGM chose J. Walter Thompson Hong Kong for an integrated campaign to launch its new US$3.1 billion resort, MGM Cotai, in Macau this year. A specialist team formed by the Shanghai and Hong Kong offices will work on the strategy and executions.

Scotch Industrial (Thailand) appointed PHD Thailand to handle its portfolio of health products following a five-way pitch involving Dentsu, GroupM, Starcom and Carat. The scope of work extends to all media planning and buying, inclusive of content and digital for all Scotch products.

RFI Studios China, the digital arm of Ruder Finn Asia, has been named digital agency of record for the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia (PCCA) racing series, following a pitch. The two-year retainer will include digital campaigns and social-media promotions across the region, in addition to designing and maintaining the event’s web presence.

Business France, the French government’s economic development entity, appointed The Hoffman Agency to promote the country’s burgeoning technology industry in Asia and America. Hoffman is responsible for building awareness of ‘La French Tech’ initiative, and highlight tech successes working both within and outside France. 

OTHER NEWS

J. Walter Thompson opened applications for its third annual Helen Lansdowne Resor (HLR) Scholarship, an international opportunity that addresses the lack of female creative leadership in the industry. Each year, it awards five individual scholarships up to $10,000. Additionally, each recipient will be offered a paid summer internship with a JWT office in her respective region; a JWT mentor; and a “first look” placement consideration upon graduation. See www.jwt.com/hlrscholarship  for further information.

Publicis Media signed a partnership with the Institute of Computer Technology in Beijing, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The tie-up gives boosts Publicis Media’s data scraping, emotional modelling and data exchange capabilities. 

Ashley Galina Dudarenok founded ChoZan, a China-based marketing-guidance platform for Hong Kong clients. She ran Alarice International, a Hong Kong-based digital marketing agency for six years previously.