Move and win roundup: Week of December 2, 2019

VMLY&R has appointed Bernadette Chan as regional HR Director for Asia, responsible for the Asia network’s overarching HR strategy, providing tactical HR support for its business operations and capital initiatives. Chan also joins VMLY&R’s Asia regional leadership team and the agency's global HR leadership team. Chan comes to the agency from Times Publishing Group where she was head of group human capital.  Prior to that, Chan was corporate HR VP for MediaCorp.

Mullen Lintas and Lowe Lintas appointed Siddhartha Roy as Bangalore office branch head, taking over from Kishore Subramanian, who led the office for over four years. Roy has worked with Ogilvy, Everest Y&R and Publicis Ambience, as well as serving as COO of Happy Creative, which merged with Dentsu Aegis Network India as Happy McGarryBowen. He was strategy lead at 82.5 Communications before moving to Mullen Lintas.

Singapore-based PR agency Redhill has appointed Charu Srivastava as a director and Ann-Marie Eu as a senior director. Srivastava will oversee B2B accounts while growing the agency’s public affairs and government relations offering while Eu will streamline strategic initiatives, lead special projects, and oversee the agency’s day-to-day operations. Srivastava joins from BCW and specialises in strategic communications, content marketing, media relations and issues management. Eu, meanwhile, joins from Milken Institute, where she led the economic think tank’s communications campaigns in APAC.

Octagon promoted Ben Hartman to a newly created role as chief client officer, International, and Aykan Azar to managing director, APAC, Middle East and Africa. Hartman, previously MD of APAC, will remain based in Sydney. Azar, formerly MD of Southeast Asia and Japan, will now oversee offices across Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, India, the Middle East and Africa. Both will report to John Shea, global president, marketing and events, Octagon Worldwide. Hartman and Azar also join Lou Kovacs, president of marketing in North America, and Jeff Meeson, MD in Europe, on a newly formed executive team reporting to Shea.

Media agency PHD has promoted Avril Canavan to worldwide chief marketing and communications officer to oversee the strategic direction of PHD’s communications and marketing activities. Canavan joined PHD Worldwide in 2010 from Iris as global PR director before being promoted to worldwide marketing and communications director in 2013. Meanwhile, Patrick Ryan has been named worldwide chief commercial officer, responsible for PHD’s growth strategy and overseeing the implementation locally, regionally and globally.  Ryan joined PHD in 2013 as worldwide business development director from UM. The newly created roles will see Canavan and Ryan form part of the worldwide executive team and both will continue reporting to Philippa Brown, worldwide CEO. Additionally, Emma Storer has been promoted to worldwide business development director, reporting to Ryan, while Jess Ozdemir and Lisa Williams join the worldwide marketing and communications team as worldwide director and EMEA director respectively, reporting to Canavan.

Weber Shandwick China has made three promotions to its senior leadership team. Corbin Hsieh moves from SVP to a newly created chief growth officer role accountable for China’s overall business performance as well as the firm’s business development group. Hsieh has a long history with Weber Shandwick, spanning fifteen years from when he first joined the Taipei office in 2004. Rocky Wang, also a Weber Shandwick veteran who has been responsible for the South China business from Guangzhou is now promoted to executive vice president and head of South China.  He will now oversee the Greater Bay Area in the south of the country, with a specific focus on Guangzhou and Shenzhen, while also maintaining oversight of constellation teams in Beijing. Finally, Paxton Cheng has been promoted to head of operations to implement a strategy focused on efficiency and profitability, including project management, financial success, resourcing and talent development. All report to Lydia Lee, president, Weber Shandwick, China.

Matt Collette, former executive group director of Ogilvy Singapore has joined Edelman as APAC vice chair of digital. He returns as a previous employee of Edelman of more than 7 years where he served in a variety of roles including as managing director of Zeno Singapore from 2016 to 2018. In his new role, he will oversee Edelman’s digital operations spanning 11 markets in the region and will report to Asia Pacific COO, Bob Grove. 

Twitter appointed Ryuji Mitsuishi Banderas as the first director for Twitter Next in Japan and Korea. He was most recently managing director for Havas Worldwide’s Japan division and has also held roles at Google, McCann and DDB. He will be based in Tokyo, reporting to Alex Josephson, global head of Twitter Next. Twitter Next is the social-media platform's recently relaunched brand strategy offering, which includes campaign and content strategy services, brand voice consultations, and a new lab of technologists, program managers, and designers.

MoPub Japan named Tetsuro Suzuki, previously with Facebook, as its new head. He will oversee the supply side of MoPub’s business in Japan, helping top app developers monetize through ads and helping advertisers reach their audiences in mobile in-app. Suzuki worked at Facebook for seven years, first in Tokyo where he led the market entry of Facebook ads and later at the APAC HQ in Singapore. Most recently he led Audience Network, Facebook's ad network business. earlier in his career he worked for Yahoo Japan.

Just Better Care selected Sydney independent The Core Agency as its creative agency following a pitch. The remit covers strategy, creative, design, digital and content. Just Better Care provides in-home aged care and disability support servicesto over 4,000 customers. Based in Sydney, it has over 30 independently owned and franchised operations across Australia in New South Wales, ACT, Victoria and Queensland.