As chief investment officer of trading and partnerships from 1 June onwards, Gavin Hu will lead the media investment and trading team at Omnicom Media Group (OMG) China. In particular he will be charged with forging closer partnerships with Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.
The company said the position is a new one. Hu will be supported by Tommy Li, who was recently promoted to the position of managing director for trading and investment.
The new appointee joins from Viva Media Group where he was the CMO (and acting COO, according to him) and helped to build the company from scratch to its recent IPO listing.
Prior to this, he was the co-head for digital at JWT China, working with brands such as Ford, Nike, Yum, and Anta.
“For some time, we have been looking to find the next-generation trading and investment lead—someone with a digital focus and the ability to interact at the most senior level with our media partners," said Doug Pearce, OMG's Greater China CEO.
The media trading and investment landscape has "completely changed", added Pearce, to be now "much more dynamic and all-encompassing" across data, inventory, content, analytics and ecommerce.
Hu will also join OMG China’s Executive Management group.