Move and win roundup: Week of August 2, 2021

Campaign compiles a new 'Move and win roundup' as each week progresses.  This edition will cover August 2 to 6, 2021.  Catch up on past people moves and business wins.

BMF announced the return of Lucy Kough as a creative director. With over 20 years of experience, she has worked in roles across direct, brand, media, digital, experiential, regional and CRM in creative agencies including Ensemble Australia, Enigma Agency and most recently Archibald/Williams. She has delivered work across a diverse range of brands such as The Australian, Vogue, The Cancer Council, KitKat, Allens, Lego, Hesta and The Australian Formula One Grand Prix. 

Wavemaker China won the digital media business of American sports and performance apparel brand Under Armour. The appointment, which comes after a competitive pitch includes strategy, planning, buying and content innovation.

Havas Media Group Australia and New Zealand chairman Mike Wilson will step down after eight years effective at the end of August. He will continue to act as a consultant. Wilson was founding CEO of Havas Media Australia in 2013, and was named chairman in 2019. Most recently he led the acquisition of the Hyland Agency, completed in 2020, which led to Virginia Hyland's appointment as CEO of Havas Media Group Australia. He worked at MEC before co-founding Naked Communications in 2004, prior to launching Havas Media.

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Singapore appointed Hashtag Interactive to strategise, execute and manage its social-media pages and content. The contract is for one year. The agency will be leading the delivery of consistent, high quality, and on-brand social content for the brand's local social
pages, in addition to developing and engaging its community of brand loyalists with innovative content.

Production team Kate Merrin and Rachel Gilkison launched Palomina, a new Melbourne-based production company. The company offers end-to-end production service to execute campaigns across TV, digital, paid social and radio.The two founders have a combined 35 years of experience in film, TV and commercial production. The company is launching with foundation client Sportsbet, and has already worked with the client's in-house creative team to take the 'Elite average games' and 'Bet with mates' campaigns to market.

Conversational agency Versa appointed Vanessa Tout as global head of client partnerships and Michael Oso-Hughes as design director. Tout joins CEO Kath Blackham and MD Michael Di Natale, on the executive leadership team. She takes responsibility for driving growth across new business and existing client partnerships in key markets, including Australia, the US and India. She joins from her role as client partner at Isobar and also spent five years as client director at Digitas UK. Oso-Hughes is a certified conversational AI designer and developer. He has worked at agencies including Isobar, Soap and The Monkeys.

Pepper Interactive Communications was awarded the India public relations mandate for Continental Tires. The agency will plan and execute communications strategies on behalf of the company for its commercial-vehicle and passenger-vehicle /light truck divisions in India.

OOH adtech firm Hivestack has scooped Ichiro Jinnai as president of Japan. Jinnai is the former CEO of Live Board, Japan's first impression-based DOOH exchange, which was established as a joint venture company between NTT DOCOMO and Dentsu. Prior to this, Jinnai spent almost three decades in various senior positions at Dentsu in Japan, China and Singapore. At Hivestack, he will be responsible for driving the regional strategy, direction and expansion of the platform in Japan.

Golin China has appointed Kurt Deng to the newly created role of executive creative director, with a remit to drive earned-first creative in China. Deng joins the agency with over two decades of experience across both in PR and advertising across McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather PR and Publicis. Deng reports directly to Lydia Shen, managing director of Golin China.

The Australian Professional Leagues (APL), the body that represents Australia’s major professional football leagues, has appointed R/GA Australia as its lead agency partner. R/GA's appointment follows a thorough tender process involving agencies in both Australia and the UK. APL was formed in December after the football clubs separated from the national governing body Football Australia.

Essensys, a software company for the co-working industry, has appointed Eric Schaffer as CEO of Asia-Pacific. Based in Hong Kong, Schaffer will spearhead the establishment of Essensys’ APAC business. He joins with over a decade of broad real estate expertise, having most recently served as the head of real estate advisory for APAC at WeWork.

Red Havas has brought on Ken Lerona as its new business director in the Philippines. Lerona brings with him 20 years of  experience in marketing, brand, and communications across a range of industries. He was most recently head of marketing and corporate comms at Entrego. He will work closely with Janessa Tek-ing, who has been promoted from account director to associate business director.

Beverage manufacturer Multi Bintang Indonesia has appointed strategic communication consultant Maverick Indonesia to manage communications for four of its brands, Heineken, Bintang Pilsener, Bintang 0.0% and Bintang Crystal.

Asia PR Werkz has won the public relations remit for Trip.com in Southeast Asia, and has been reappointed by Singapore Management University's Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship for the financial year 2021-2022. For Trip.com the agency will focus on media relations, brand communications and support for its marketing campaigns. For SMU IIE it will provide strategic public relations counsel and access to insights within the startup network and seek to increase its share of voice within the media. 

Magnite has announced its new leadership team in Asia following the acquisition of SpotX. Gavin Buxton has been appointed managing director of Asia, responsible for business across key markets including Southeast Asia, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, and Yogesh Sehgal will assume the role of head of partner development. Juliette Stead will continue to lead Magnite across Asia Pacific and Japan in her role of senior vice president and head of JAPAC.

Discovery has announced a leadership shuffle in APAC. The firm has appointed Jeeyoung Lee as senior vice president for Asia Pacific content strategy and general manager of Japan and South Korea. Lee, based in Seoul, will join the business on August 17 and report to Simon Robinson, chief transformation officer and president Asia Pacific. Lee will join Discovery from New Regency Productions, where she led APAC regional content sales. In addition:

• In Australia and New Zealand, Discovery announced that Rebecca Kent will transition from her role as joint general manager, ANZ, to the newly created position of senior vice president, transformation.
• Glen Kyne, who was appointed joint-lead for ANZ alongside Kent following the acquisition of MediaWorks TV in late 2020, will solely lead the trans-Tasman business going forward as senior vice president and general manager, ANZ.

Chemical giant BASF promoted Bhavna Satyanarayan to APAC head of comms services, a step up from her previous role as APAC comms head of the care chemicals division. She will move to Kuala Lumpur from her current base of Hong Kong to lead a team of 28. Read more here.

Gusto Luxe, the agency for luxury brands, promoted Shashin Surti to managing director. He will continue to operate from Shanghai and report to to Gusto Luxe founding partner Nick Cakebread.

L’Oréal Australia and New Zealand appointed GroupM agency Wavemaker as its new media agency from October 1, 2021.The review process was overseen by Ebiquity, an independent advisor to manage the process on behalf of L’Oréal Australia and New Zealand. The other agency in the final pitch was Carat, which lost the business. L’Oréal Australia and New Zealand have had a relationship with Carat since 2014 and during this time, the team has assisted L’Oréal in pivoting from brand awareness campaigns to accelerating ecommerce. Wavemaker is the agency for a number of major international L’Oréal markets.

Brunswick Group hired Caroline Dent as partner, Group Strategy in the Singapore office. Dent was previously at ECI Partners, a UK-based private equity firm, where she was a partner. 

Haylie Marchant was appointed executive director of Red Havas Brisbane. She will also join the agency's national senior management team. Marchant joins Red Havas from M2 Communications. 

M&C Saatchi Indonesia has won the business for PermataBank in a multi-agency pitch that saw five agencies participate. Narrada Communications was the incumbent. The scope of services includes ATL, BTL and Digital.

Omnicom Media Group Indonesia (OMG Indonesia) will use Affle’s mediasmart platform to bring its programmatic and connected TV (CTV) advertising offering to its clients in Indonesia. 

Integral Ad Science has hired Saurabh Khattar to lead sales operations in India, working with brands, agencies, publishers and platforms in the region. Based in Delhi, Saurabh reports to Laura Quigley, SVP APAC. Previously, Khattar was director of sales and media partnerships at Taboola. 

After the announcement of Roland Bouchara as CEO and managing director for Stellantis in India in April, the company has appointed Saurabh Vatsa and Nipun J Mahajan to helm Citroën and Jeep brands in the market. Vatsa joined PSA in 2018 as senior director of marketing and corporate communications. For the Jeep brand, Mahjan has been with the brand for five years in the position of vice president of sales operations and network development. Both of them will report to Bouchara, and the new organisation structure was effective June 7.

Malaysia Aviation Group appointed Cheryl Goh Ching Ling as non-executive director of the airline group as well as its wholly owned subsidiary Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB). Goh is the group vice-president of marketing and sustainability and the founding chief marketing officer of ride-hailing giant Grab Holdings.

BBDO Greater China appointed Elvis Li as general manager of Energy BBDO Shanghai. He joins the BBDO Group with the belief that China’s digital environment has changed the nature of brand-building, and that marketers now have a unique opportunity to embrace creativity that enables them to achieve both long-term brand building as well as drive immediate sales.

Social media intelligence company Circus Social has rebranded as Radarr as it evolves to cater to increasing demand for predictive digiRadarrtal insights in Asia. The company, which launched in 2012, will roll out its new name, visual identity, products, and website this month.

Mindshare has won the media account for Jenny Craig in Australia following a competitive pitch. The agency will handle Jenny Craig’s offline and TV media planning and buying.