Wunderman Thompson hires Ogilvy's Samir Gupte as Indonesia CEO

Following the announcement of Audrey Kuah as the APAC CEO of Wunderman Thompson, the agency has brought in Samir Gupte as chief executive officer for its Indonesia operations.

Gupte commences the new role immediately and will report to Kuah. 

In his previous role, Gupte was the executive director and head of operations at Ogilvy Indonesia. He takes the reins from Vaishali Sarkar, who moved to Wunderman Thompson, Canada, in June this year as president.

Gupte is an Ogilvy veteran, having spent nearly 23 years with the agency, mainly at Ogilvy Indonesia in various roles.

He initially came in as the managing director of OgilvyAction, where he led the merger that formed Geometry Global—before moving to SohoSquare, Ogilvy's second integrated agency in 2016. After two years, Gupte took over the managing director role at Ogilvy Indonesia.

Under his leadership, the agency won clients such as Kimberly-Clark Softex, Converse, Sunpride, and Asian Paints and also received multiple awards and recognition, including Ogilvy Indonesia's first ever Effies for a campaign titled 'Mother's love is perfect' for Nestle's Dancow last week.

Gupte commented about the new role to Campaign: "I am excited about this next chapter in my career. Having worked very closely with Wunderman Thompson teams on key clients like Nestle and Unilever, I am aware of the agency's sheer talent and pool.

The current leadership team has done a great job of consolidating the agency's different services to strengthen our CX, data, content, and e-commerce capabilities and drive growth for our clients in Indonesia."

Wunderman Thompson’s APAC CEO Audrey Kuah added: "Samir brings vast integrated marketing experience growing some of the world's largest brands in Southeast Asia's largest economy. With his expertise in integrating brand, digital, data and technology and his growth ambition for us, we are pleased to have Samir join our leadership team."

Wunderman Thompson's key clients in Indonesia include Vaseline, Danone Aqua, Dancow and KitKat. The agency has been responsible for some of the market's most successful campaigns, such as Vaseline's #BebasGerah work, freeing hijabi from the heat faced every day that led to the product becoming a category leader in just four months.