Move and win roundup: Dentsu, ComScore, Publicis, Grey, Edelman, more

PEOPLE MOVES

Dentsu X Thailand named Sarnchatt Chansrakao, previously senior managing director, as its new CEO, succeeding Mitsuyuki Nakamura, who will return to Japan to take up a new role as the managing director of Global Business Centre of Dentsu and global vice president of Dentsu X.

ComScore made three appointments in Sydney: Adam Natiq as head of sales for Australia and New Zealand, Alan Jenner as senior product manager for Asia Pacific, and Derek Wen as client services manager for Asia Pacific. Natiq was most recently country manager for Australia and New Zealand at Innovid. Jenner has held advertising operations roles at Bauer Media, Optus, ad2one and Telstra. Wen joins from Sizmek, where he was client services manager. 

Edelman Singapore promoted Delicia Tan to managing director of client growth and innovation and Jamie Read to managing director, sectors. Both are newly created positions reporting to Amanda Goh, CEO of Edelman Singapore. Tan was most recently senior director and Read led Edelman’s Southeast Asia health sector business.

Faisal Hayat has joined Qarshi Industries as its new head of marketing. After nearly eight years in various brand management roles with Herbion International, growing the consumer healthcare portfolio, Hayat has made the switch to Qarshi Industries, one of the largest herbal pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan. He will now be based out of Lahore, leaving Karachi for the role.

Uniplan appointed Karen Arndt, previously chief operating officer for the venture-capital company Nest in Hong Kong, as chief global development officer, based in Hong Kong. She worked for the agency in China from 2006 to 2015, establishing its presence in Guangzhou and expanding in Shanghai.

Honey Mittal has joined FinAccel as its chief product officer. He will work on Kredivo, the flagship fintech product that is disrupting the unsecured lending space. The transition comes after nearly four years with Wego.com in a similar role.

Essence promoted Kim-Leng Hoeu to APAC paid social lead in Singapore. She was previously based out of London, in a similar role for the EMEA region.

Grey Group Singapore appointed Maurice Wee and Devika Johri as creative director and planning director, respectively. Both will work primarily on GlaxoSmithKline. Wee

joins from BBH Asia Pacific, where he was creative director, while Johri joins from Ogilvy & Mather Singapore, where she was global planning director on Unilever’s Pond’s.

MediaCom promoted Christian Solomon to China chief digital officer from general manager. He also be part of the executive committee of the agency. In this role, he will continue to be based in Beijing and will report directly to Rupert McPetrie, CEO MediaCom China. Solomon joined MediaCom China in early 2013 as the VW Group client team director in Beijing.

Dentsu appointed Masako Okamura as the executive creative director of Aspac Creative Communications, Dentsu Aegis Network Philippines. Okamura has spent 20 years with Dentsu and is the agency’s first female creative director. 

Video-monetisation company Mirriad appointed James J Lerch, formerly business development director for Alibaba’s Youku Tudou, as China GM and appointed Bharat Vijay Zende, formerly with Google as regional sales and business development lead, as India GM.

Publicis Communications promoted Rebecca Liu (刘晓畅）to director of communications, Greater China, from chief marketing officer of Saatchi & Saatchi. Liu will still be keeping her portfolio at Saatchi & Saatchi after her promotion, but she will now lead the PR, marketing and corporate communications of all the communication agencies including Leo Burnett, Publicis Worldwide, MSLGROUP, Arcade, Publicis Commerce, Publicis Vivid, Publicis Wangfan, Nurun, Team One, 133SH, MetaDesign, Luminous Experiential MSLGROUP and Prodigious.

Amnet, the programmatic arm of Dentsu Aegis Network, hired Conrad Tallariti as general manager. He joined from LinkedIn, where he was head of agencies in Southeast Asia and North Asia. 

IPG Mediabrands promoted Sujith Rao to vice president of Inventure, the agency’s research and consulting unit. IPG Mediabrands also integrated its marketing cloud consulting services into Inventure, under Rao’s remit. 

ICYMI: Other news we covered this week IndaHash enters Asia-Pacific Reebok awards social-media remit in six SEA markets VLT signs partnership with Cambodia's MSA OtterBox appoints Lion & Lion for paid search in nice APAC markets

BUSINESS WINS

We Are Social Singapore was named social agency-of-record for Epson in Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indochina.

Following a pitch, Singapore’s National Heritage Board appointed Auditoire to plan and manage the Singapore Night Festival 2017, taking place in August. The agency will provide creative strategy and execution.

Asia Pulp & Paper hired SPRG Singapore as its PR agency of record. SPRG will handle stakeholder engagement and communications strategy, as APP seeks to promote the transformations it has gone through following its association with anti-environmental business practices.   

Fireworks, a creative agency in China, will partner with Digital Retex, Tencent’s official reseller in Europe, to offer a combination of WeChat advertising and content to drive awareness and conversion for the Singles' Day shopping festival this year. Besides opening and managing brands’ official accounts on WeChat, Digital Retex will also take care of media planning and the integration of technology with e-commerce channels. Fireworks will handle the creation of content to support the media investments.

CtrlShift announced a reorganisation into three units. ‘The Hub’ is a SaaS platform used by agencies and brands to efficiently buy media at scale across multiple channels and buying ecosystems. ‘The Studio’ focuses on providing audience-focused marketing solutions, offering media strategy and trading-desk services leveraging The Hub. ‘The Lab’ is the company’s data sciences-focused R&D unit. CtrlShift will continue to offer data-driven marketing services to companies requiring a comprehensive tech-plus-services package.