Move and win roundup: Week of June 29, 2020

Campaign compiles a new 'Move and win roundup' as each week progresses. This edition will cover June 29 through July 3, 2020. Catch up on past people moves and business wins.

Dentsu Aegis Network Singapore appointed Prantik Mazumdar as managing director of its CRM Group effective July 1. He will continue in his role as managing partner of Happy Marketer, a Merkle Company. Mazumdar reports to Zhengda Shen, president of Merkle APAC, and Prakash Kamdar, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Singapore. He has 15 years of experience and started his career at International Enterprise Singapore (IE) before joining Happy Marketer in 2011.

DoubleVerify has named former Telaria boss Mark Zagorski as its CEO. Zagorski is known for turning around the fortunes of Telaria, formerly known as Tremor Video, by selling its buy-side business and doubling down on connected TV capabilities. He led the company's merger with Rubicon Project, announced in December, when he became president and COO of the merged company. But he left shortly before it re-emerged as Magnite. At DoubleVerify, Zagorski replaces Wayne Gattinella, who stepped down earlier this year following controversial allegations in a New York Post report.

Elsewhere, Kevin Smyth, the former general manager of Southeast Asia at Telaria, is no longer with the business. Smyth led Southeast Asia for the sell-side adtech company for nearly four years, and was formerly programmatic sales director for ASEAN. As Telaria formally became Magnite this week, merged with Rubicon Project, Smyth is "looking for new opportunities", according to his LinkedIn.

Following a pitch, Red² Digital has been appointed as Whole Earth Brands’ agency of record for its key Asia Pacific markets of Australia and New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines. The agency has been tasked with leading the company’s digital marketing activity, including creative development, digital media planning and buying, ecommerce off-platform content, SEM, SEO, paid social, and influencer partnerships. The Nasdaq-listed company's brands include Equal, Whole Earth, Naturals and Pure Via.

Archetype appointed Liz Weselby as deputy managing director. She has been brought in specifically to support the growing client load as well as expand the company’s industry expertise with her experience in content marketing in the lifestyle segment, according to the company. Weselby's previous roles include editorial director at LUXE City Guides in Hong Kong, head of editorial at Ink Singapore and co-founder of a publishing agency in Bangkok, including the weekend lifestyle supplement for The Bangkok Post. She is an advisory council member for The Women's Foundation Mentoring Program for Women Leaders.

Lewis has been appointed the social media agency of record for ION Orchard, a popular shopping mall in Singapore. The agency will be tasked with content creation, management and optimisation of social marketing, in addition to maintaining a consistent identity and distinctive voice for the brand. Jointly owned by CapitaLand and Sun Hung Kai Properties, ION Orchard has over 300 shops and is spread across eight floors. 

VaynerMedia APAC appointed Jian Yang, most recently business director at Strategic Public Relations Group. as head of client services. He will be responsible for the agency’s roster of clients including leading brands in the skincare, insurance, banking, technology and telecommunications sectors. Yang has over 20 years of experience in creative, media and public relations. Prior to SPRG he spent six years at Omnicom Media Group, including roles as head of content and ideation, and global strategy director for Hasbro’s Transformers brand. He has also held roles at JWT in Singapore and Bahrain, and Huntington Communications. 

INEOS Automotive, a UK-based startup vehicle manufacturer, appointed Eastwest Public Relations to lead communications across Southeast Asia, with key markets being Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The company is designing and developing a utilitarian 4x4 vehicle, the Grenadier, for sale around the world, with customer deliveries slated for 2022. Eastwest will drive awareness for INEOS by offering strategy, planning, media relations, content creation, digital services and events across the Southeast Asia market.

APCO Worldwide added Chew Suok Kai and Fredrik Nyberg, health experts with more than 60 years of experience between them, to its International Advisory Council (IAC). Both are based in Singapore. Chew, a medial doctor, is a senior advisor at Singapore’s Ministry of Health, with more than 30 years of experience working in the government, healthcare industry and academia. He has worked at the World Health Organization, served as the medical director of the Communicable Diseases Center and is a founding member of the Singapore Infectious Diseases Society. Nyberg has more than 30 years of experience in healthcare and is the former CEO at the Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association (APACMed). He is currently managing director of Asia Pacific’s Medtech Innovator, the industry’s nonprofit global accelerator for medical device, digital health and diagnostic companies.

News Corp Australia appointed Mike Connaghan, formerly chief executive of WPP AUNZ, as managing director of commercial content. He was CEO at WPP AUNZ from 2006 until he stepped down in 2018.

FILA China appointed Paper Stone Scissors as creative and strategic communications partner following a pitch. The contract began in March and the first work, 'Solar Pack' debuted in April. 

Wavemaker has retained, for the 12th year running, the media mandate for L’Oréal Indonesia following an "extensive and rigorous" multi-agency pitch review in December 2019. The new mandate includes additional services of ecommerce and search. This retention tops off GroupM’s recent influencer media mandate win, positioning the agency as an integrated media market services agency for L’Oréal Indonesia. The brand's Indonesia president director Umesh Phadke said the review was done in the context of a very dynamic market further disrupted by COVID-19 and that GroupM's scale and deep talent pool made the difference.

A year after WPP AUNZ announced that its digital marketing and media arm Switched On would merge with AKQA, the merger takes into effect today. From today, the Switched On name will no longer be used and its capabilities and employees will now operate under the AKQA brand. Switched On’s managing director Chris Hitchcock said there were no other alterations or restructures to the business other than the change in branding, with all Switched On employees retaining their current titles and remits, under the AKQA name. Hitchcock will report into Brian Vella, managing partner of AKQA in APAC.

Data intelligence company Dataxet has acquired Sonar Platform in Indonesia along with News and Ads Monitoring Agency (NAMA) in Malaysia. The move complements Dataxet’s efforts in building its network of data intelligence capabilities across Asia, following its joint venture with Truescope in Singapore. Sonar Platform is made up of two offerings: Sonar Analystics, an intelligence platform that combines social, digital, print and marketplace data sources, as well as Sonar Influence, an influencer management platform. NAMA, meanwhile, is Malaysia’s largest independent media monitoring company.

Wavemaker has been appointed by US video game developer Bungie to handle media planning and buying in APAC, North America and Europe. Bungie is an independent, employee-owned game development studio. Separately, Wavemaker also bagged the ecommerce mandate for Mondelez India.

Indian PR firm ICCPL has bagged the national PR mandate for VideoMeet, a audio and video conferencing application. VideoMeet is a start-up developed in response to the government’s invitation for developing a substitute for Zoom.

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has named media veteran Phin Wong as its new head of content marketing. Wong will be responsible for driving the media group’s monetisation strategy in the area of sponsored content. He will also lead SPH’s content marketing unit SWEET, which delivers client-focused solutions across SPH titles, audience segments and platforms. Wong was previously at Mediacorp’s CNA where he was supervising editor for CNA Lifestyle & CNA Luxury. Prior to that, he founded and ran Mediacorp’s content marketing unit, Brand Studio. In his new role, he will report to chief commercial officer Ignatius Low.

Lead generation agency Egentic has appointed Benedikt Becker as country manager for its operations in Singapore and Malaysia. In his new role based in Singapore, Becker will manage the country teams and drive growth. Prior to this, he was head of sales at marketing agency Audience Serv where he was responsible for APAC expansion. Egentic specialises in leads for direct marketing, focusing in financial, insurance, beauty, charity and the education sectors.

Former JKR Singapore head of strategy Katie Ewer has joined Facebook as creative systems lead within its APAC Creative Shop team. Ewer was formerly one of the senior leaders at design agency JKR in Singapore, which shut down its Singapore outpost in April this year as part of what it said was a "strategic business decision to focus on China and other markets where our clients need us most". Ewer spent nearly seven years at the design agency in Singapore.

RoadShow Media Group announced that its indirectly wholly owned subsidiary, Bus Power Limited won a tender from Hong Kong bus operators New World First Bus Services and Citybus. The contract runs from July 1 for three years and covers bus body exterior and interior advertising for more than 1,700 double- and single-deck buses running on about 200 routes. JCDecaux Cityscape previously held the concession.

AnalogFolk announced a series of new hires and a promotion in Sydney:

• Willy Mason, formerly of Clemenger BBDO Sydney, joins as senior art director.
• Zoe McMurdo joins as senior account director, from Social Soup.
• Emily Leary, formerly with Edge, joins as senior editor.
• Chloe Lai joins as graphic design intern.
• Chris Loukakis has been promoted from senior strategist to strategy director.
• Other recent hires include Alistair McCann as senior copywriter, from RAPP; Jemma Parkin, who joined as an intern last year before being promoted to community manager; and Holly Paykel as editor, formerly from social agency Present Company.

Content-marketing agency IMMedia Content appointed Mary Weaver as head of editorial. She will play a key role in the global rollout of IMMedia’s content platform, “IMMediate”, whilst providing client support across the agency's portfolio. Singapore-based Weaver has two decades of experience in traditional publishing and content marketing in agency settings including at Reader's Digest, TimeOut, Ink, Discovery Channel, PwC, John Brown Novus and Dentsu Aegis. She has led editorial projects for clients including Jones & Co, Jardines, CFA Society, Temasek Holdings, Health Promotion Board, Workforce Singapore, Prudential, Grab, Danone, Accor, Panasonic, Johnson & Johnson, DuPont, Ernst & Young, Abbott, Standard Chartered and GAC Motor.

Sydney-based not-for-profit healthcare organisation St Luke’s Care appointed The Wired Agency as its digital agency. The agency will be responsible for running search advertising promoting the company's Home Care and Aged Care services. St Luke's Care is Australia’s first holistic campus for the ageing and relies heavily on donations to continue providing quality care. The campus also has a boutique private hospital, home care service, rehabilitation gymnasiums including a hydrotherapy pool and an aged care facility, Lulworth House.

Way To Blue London and its Australian digital development arm, The Project Factory won the global competitive tender for mobile app development for the Michel Thomas Method, a language-learning company. The teams will develop new iOS and Android apps for launch globally later this year. The scope of work also includes updates and improvements for the brand's ecommerce website, which the agency designed and launched in October 2018.

R/GA Australia appointed Kieran Antill as executive creative director. He will lead the agency’s multidisciplinary teams across Sydney and Melbourne. Antill's CV includes stints as managing partner and ECD at Leo Burnett New York and ECD at JWT Melbourne, and he also served as creative director of Tennis Australia for the 2019 Australian Open. In addition he has co-founded companies including Ne-Lo, a customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) specialist, and Timebirds, a fitness-tech company.

Lazada Group announced that Chun Li, formerly president and CEO of Lazada Indonesia, will be appointed group chief executive officer, charged with strengthening Lazada’s competitive advantage through data technology application and business localization across all six of its markets. Li will succeed Pierre Poignant, who will become special assistant to Alibaba group chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang. Li graduated with bachelor’s dual degree in mechanics and economics law from Peking University, and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University. He joined Alibaba Group in 2014 as chief technology officer for Alibaba's B2B business unit. He was appointed co-president of Lazada in June 2017 and was also named Lazada Indonesia CEO in July 2019.