Move and win roundup: Week of December 16, 2019

VMLY&R Melbourne has made a series of new hires and promotions in its creative department with the addition of award-winning creative Shane Geffen to the role of associate creative director, plus appointment of talented team Kate Noonan as art director and Michelle See-Tho as copywriter. The agency has also promoted Kieran Moroney to the role of associate creative director. The new moves come after the agency took back the Defence Force Australia account and retained Monash University. Prior to joining VMLY&R, Geffen held roles at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and DDB Sydney, winning numerous awards including 2 Spikes Grand Prix and 9 Cannes Lions. 

Spark44 Singapore has hired creative duo Marc Ashley Alexander and Vicki Ng as the agency looks to expands in the APAC region. The duo will work on both Jaguar and Land Rover brands across Asia Pacific, including 15 importer markets in the region. Alexander comes from Falcon Singapore where he was the creative content lead. Previous experience also includes a stint at Ogilvy working on Chelsea Football Club and Hilton APAC. Ng comes from Agape where she was associate creative strategist. 

Edelman has signed a partnership with US-based strategic consulting company Basilinna to provide multinational China- and Middle East-based clients of both firms with expanded communications and government relations services in China, the Middle East and the US. The partnership is said to help clients navigate the "challenging landscape of changing international market dynamics". The alliance also includes Edelman’s full suite of integrated global comms services.

Iflix co-founder and CEO Mark Britt is taking a step back from the business to spend more time with his family, he wrote on his LinkedIn. He will now become an executive director and spend “at least 50% of the time” in Jakarta, and the rest of his time in his hometown of Sydney. Iflix’s ad sales team will continue to report directly to him. Chief operating officer Marc Barnett has stepped up to lead the Malaysia-based SVoD as managing director.

Malaysia Dairy Industries has awarded TGH Collective,a creative boutique agency founded by ex-JWT CCO, Tay Guan Hin, its social media business for the less sugar cultured milk drink, Vitagen.
The appointment takes effect immediately in 2020.

Mediacorp has appointed Tammie Tham to its board of directors, effective from 2 January 2020.
Tham is CEO of cyber-security firm Ensign InfoSecurity. and was previously founder and CEO of cybersecurity systems integrator Accel Systems & Technologies. She also led the ASEAN security practice at IBM.

Twitter Japan senior director of sales and East Asia business development, Masahiro Ajisawa, is leaving the social media company. The exec, who also sits on the board of Twitter Japan, announced his imminent departure in a series of tweets, saying that he will "take a break and spend time with my family". 

Target Media Culcreative Pte Ltd (TMCC), a joint venture between Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), and global leader in lift advertising, Focus Media (China) emerged the sole winner of Singapore's Housing Development Board (HDB) tender to install, operate and manage 6,000 digital display panels (DDPs) in HDB lift lobbies and within lifts across Singapore’s townships. Four vendors bidded for the project. The 6,000 DDPs will be built by June 2020.

Outbrain has appointed Nathan Jackson as the new head of sales for APAC operations. Jackson will manage the advertising revenues and oversee sales teams based in Australia and Singapore. Prior to Outbrain, Jackson held commercial leadership positions at Ticketek, Integral Ad Science and Adslot.

Specialist agency Superson has appointed Anne Karumo and Shi Ho as client partners for the Asia-Pacific region, based in Singapore. Client partners are former senior marketers who work with clients on their marketing goals. Karumo, who was senior director for marketing at Visa, in charge of APAC partnerships, is now responsible for building out Superson’s fintech and sustainability expertise. Ho was the APAC head of marketing at BBC Studios, looking after 11 markets and over 50 clients and had led teams in creative agencies including BBDO and R/GA. She is now tasked with rbuilding Superson’s disruptive technology, consumer products and entertainment arms.

MullenLowe Mishra has been appointed the communication partner agency of Packaging Recycling Organization Vietnam (PRO Vietnam), the market’s first packaging recycling alliance comprised of thirteen leading consumer goods and packaging companies including Coca Cola Vietnam, Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam Beverage, URC Vietnam, LaVie, Tetra Pak Vietnam, Friesland Campina Vietnam, Nestle Vietnam, Nutifood, THG, SIG, Annam group, PepsiCo Food Vietnam and Saigon Coop. PRO Vietnam will be aiming to create consumer awareness in Vietnam and ensure that packaging recycling is more accessible and sustainable there.

Singapore-based resort operator Banyan Tree Holdings has appointed former Dentsu Aegis Network Singapore CEO Rosalynn Tay as senior vice president, head of growth and demand. She will be tasked with driving the Group’s multi-brand growth strategy and customer engagement across current and new digital channels. Prior to DAN, Tay held a marketing leadership role DBS Bank and was managing director of Tiger Airways. In 2017, Tay won Campaign Asia’s SEA Agency Head of the Year and was awarded as Campaign's Women Leading Change Awards Business Leader that same year. 

Banyan Tree has also named former Huawei APAC head of digital marketing and Singapore CMO Jonathan Ye as a new vice president, head of demand. He will be leading strategic integrated marketing directions and functions across offline and online channels for multiple brands' campaigns, digital performance marketing and content. Prior to Huawei, Ye held digital marketing roles at Starwood Hotels and was digital business director at The Secret Little Agency. 

GCI Health, a WPP healthcare comms agency, has opened a new office in Hong Kong, its second in Asia-Pacific after Singapore. The new office will officially open on January 2, 2020 and will be led by director and market leader Yvonne Yeung. Yeung joins from The Hong Kong Council of Social Service where she was the PR lead for various wide-scale healthy ageing and gerontechnology initiatives. Prior to this role, she was business director for Mind Resource Ogilvy, post Ogilvy’s acquisition of the health specialist comms firm she co-founded.

Separately, GCI Health has hired Dan Blomfield as managing director. He will oversee Singapore-based operations and complement the existing health comms business with a broader medical and healthcare professional focus. Blomfield was most recently managing director for Ogilvy Health Singapore and has close to 15 years of medical comms agency experience via agency roles in Singapore and the UK. 

Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW) has announced that it will combine operations with Ogilvy Public Relations & Influence (PR&I) and Hill & Knowlton (H+K) Strategies in Japan. The merged business will operate under the BCW brand and be led by Tsuyoshi Takemura, managing director and market leader for BCW Japan. Separately, BCW also announced the appointment of Hongdi You as digital director for Japan. See story.