Before the August 1 promotion, Meijer was managing director of TNS' Hong Kong office. In his new role, he will oversee the Hong Kong and Singapore offices and take charge of the agency's Asia-Pacific access panels -- 6thdimension -- as well as the region's international call centre, including a new Guangzhou CATI facility.
Meijer will continue to be based in Hong Kong, integrating the two offices with support from newly-promoted Hong Kong MD Wade Garland, until recently deputy MD, and Grant Bertoli, who remains as MD for Singapore.
Mark Walton, who was appointed early this year as regional chief to spearhead the rollout of 6thdimension, will also report to Meijer. TNS has eight access panels in operation, including Singapore, which launched last month. China will come on stream in September.
"Our key regional clients are either based in Singapore or Hong Kong, and we wanted to offer a seamless service for our clients, which will now be serviced from one instead of both of these cities," Meijer said, pointing to Nokia and Microsoft in Singapore and GSK in Hong Kong. He said two-thirds of TNS' businesses in the two offices were regional rather than local assignments. The integration will be supported by TNS' international call centre in Hyderabad, which will work on data processing, the scripting of questionnaires and analysis, with end reports compiled by local offices. TNS has also named its Vietnam research director Thomas Isaac to the role of director of research services in Hong Kong.