Vichai to lead Carat Thailand as CEO

"Paichit has been responsible for establishing, building and leading the Carat operation in Thailand for the past seven years," said Richard Halmarick, CEO of Carat Asia South, adding that Paichit will continue to work with Carat in a consulting role throughout 2006 to 2007. Vichai has previously served as marketing director for MP Marketing, president of Lintas Thailand, and chairman and CEO of Siamese D'Arcy. Most recently, he was chairman and CEO of the agency he founded, Idea Avenue. "The opportunity to work with the largest, most successful media independent was very tempting. I used to look after both creative and media at Lintas, and at the time we were the largest media house, so this is not new for me. I have just returned to what I know." Idea Avenue has named Yongwat Pruegsanuwong as its new managing director and the agency has now become one of Carat's clients. Carat has also been making news with its intention to acquire local agencies in the areas of outdoor media, event marketing and television programming and sponsorship. "I would like to see 12 per cent growth in billings to 4.2 billion baht (US$613.5 million) this year. (This)would strengthen our position in the market -- we're second to MindShare, which has billings between seven to eight billion baht," said Halmarick, adding that Carat now has full ownership of local internet agency Digithais Network.