Move and win roundup: Week of December 13, 2021

Campaign compiles a new 'Move and win roundup' as each week progresses.  This edition will cover December 13 through 17, 2021.  Catch up on past people moves and business wins.

Communication consultancy Vero announced it has established an office in the Philippines, which joins its Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam locations. The leadership team in Manila includes Nicole Briones, IMC account director; Christine Tria, PR account director; and Therese Liboro, associate creative director. Briones has more than eight years of experience in strategizing, leading, and managing IMC campaigns in the Philippines and abroad. She specializes in consumer telecom and tech industries and has served clients including Globe Telecom and Samsung in the Philippines and Ooredoo in Myanmar. Tria, has 20 years of experience both in-house and agency side. She joins after having led the marketing and communications team for Max International. Liboro specialises in creative storytelling and copywriting and has worked with clients such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, Fonterra, Toyota and Smart.

MediaDonuts appointed Khanh-Linh Le as country head of Vietnam. She will lead a team of 20 in Vietnam and be responsible for working with international and local partners to provide consultation and effective advertising solutions. She was previously head of SMB business at Tiktok and has 17 years of experience including senior leadership positions at multinational companies and global agencies.

Wunderman Thompson has appointed Lee Leggett to chief growth officer, APAC. Most recently the ANZ CEO, Leggett’s new role in Asia-Pacific will see her lead strategic growth for the network with a focus on new business and key clients across the region including Australia. Leggett joined the network as Wunderman Thompson ANZ CEO in June 2020, with over 20 years’ digital and international experience. Matt Parry, who joined the Sydney team as MD earlier this year, will take over as Australia’s CEO. Parry began his career with the network in 2006, before moving to Asia in 2012. Both Leggett and Parry will continue to be based in Sydney and will report to Ewen Sturgeon, CEO International, Wunderman Thompson.

Sitecore, a provider of experience management software, has appointed Joey Lim to lead it’s Asia-Pacific and Japan operations. Singapore-based Lim will report to Sitecore’s global chief revenue officer Monte Wilson. Prior to joining Sitecore, Lim was VP of commercialization at Lark, a ByteDance business unit, providing collaboration and communications software to enterprise customers.

Pancast, an online video marketplace, has launched in Southeast Asia, opening an office in Indonesia and appointed Miranti Herwinda as country manager. Herwinda was previously commercial director Indonesia for Collab Asia. 

MediaMonks has appointed Hironaga Yai as senior strategy director in in Tokyo. With over two decades of experience, Yai comes from Wunderman Thompson where he was head of strategy.

M&C Saatchi Sydney has made a series of creative hires, including creative duos Georgie Waters and Felix Ettelson, Tim Batterham and Nicole Conway, Bec Matlioski as senior copywriter, Parisa Rezaei as art director and Lauren Seaborn taking a copywriter position. Waters and Ettelson arrive from Ogilvy Sydney as does Matlioski. After freelancing throughout Sydney, including a long stint at M&C Saatchi, creative team Tim Batterham and Nicole Conway join the group as art director and copywriter. In addition, Lauren Seaborn also joins the copywriting team at M&C Saatchi, having worked at DDB Sydney 

Avian WE has been appointed as the communications partner handling the mandate of upGrad for its B2B arm called Business.

Following MSQ’s acquisition of Elmwood (and its merger with Holmes&Marchant), the agency has hired Caroline So as managing director for its Shanghai studio. So has held client service strategy and management roles for advertising agencies for the past 19 years most recently for Media.Monks, where she was VP of client engagement. 

Carat has been appointed by apparel retailer Uniqlo as its partner in integrated marketing solutions in Singapore. The agency will be responsible for omnichannel planning and performance marketing to drive full funnel outcomes for the apparel brand.

Omnicom Media Group appointed Anisha Iyer as chief executive officer of its media network OMD in India, effective January 2022. She replaces Priti Murthy, who joined GroupM Services India as president in October. Iyer joined the group in 2019 as managing director for OMD in Malaysia. Earlier this year she was appointed as chief product officer for the group in Thailand. At OMD India, Iyer will report to Kartik Sharma, group CEO, Omnicom Media Group India. In a career spanning two decades, Iyer has also worked with Mindshare, Madhouse and GroupM.

Australasia independent Bastion announced the launch of a digital-transformation consultancy, Bastion Transform, with former ABC director of news Gaven Morris as CEO. Morris will launch and lead the digital advisory, strategy and organisation renewal consultancy. He was director of news at ABC for the past six years, overseeing 1,200 staff and serving on ABC’s executive leadership team. He has prior experience with CNN.com Europe and Al Jazeera English.

Touch PR announced two new business wins in its beauty portfolio in Malaysia: Laneige and Wardah Beauty. After working on four campaigns for Laneige in the last quarter of 2021, Touch PR was awarded a retainer partnership with the Amorepacific-owned, South Korean brand. The agency will support Indonesia-based Wardah Beauty, a driver in halal beauty, in an upcoming Malaysia campaign.

Google Cloud appointed Sherie Ng as country director in Singapore and Malaysia. She will be responsible for leading revenue and go-to-market strategy and operations for Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace. She reports to Ruma Balasubramanian, Southeast Asia MD. Ng joins from Microsoft, where she was general manager for the public sector in Asia Pacific, spearheading business engagements and partnerships with government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and healthcare and education institutions.She has also served as MD in Southeast Asia for NICE Systems and held management roles with Invensys, Singtel, Comverse Technologies, CSG Systems and Lucent Technologies.

International hiring company Deel and ecommerce funding startup Wayflyer joined Archetype’s client portfolio in Australia. Archetype will oversee Wayflyer's launch in Australia and focus on brand building for the ecommerce funding disruptor, while working to position both brands as key players in the business ecosystem. 

LawConnect, an online platform to find lawyers, appointed digital marketing agency Tug to drive consumer awareness across digital channels including content creation, organic and paid social strategy and creative, as well as the relaunch of LawConnect across Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and PPC. The appointment comes ahead of the Rolex Sydney Hobart yacht race and LawConnect’s sponsorship of Christian Becks supermaxi in this year’s race.