Move and win roundup: Week of June 8, 2020

Dentsu Aegis Network appointed Monica Mui as business director of iProspect Vietnam. She joins from Shangri-La International Hotel Management where she was most recently global assistant vice president of performance marketing (media). Mui is currently in Hong Kong but will relocate to Vietnam in coming months, where she wlll join the iProspect management team along with CEO Thu Nguyen, chief growth officer Andrew Stephens and MD Pham Buu Long. This is a return to iProspect for Lui, who was regional client director at iProspect Asia Pacific in Singapore before joining Shangri-La.

New Zealand wine company Invivo & Co appointed Rachael Everitt to the newly created role of international marketing manager. She previously worked at integrated agency Pead where she developed creative strategies for consumer brands and headed up the agency’s drinks portfolio. At Invivo she will be working with local agencies and distributors around the world to grow the Invivo and Graham Norton wine and spirits brands and the newly launched Invivo X, Sarah Jessica Parker wine brand. In her first three months Everitt will be focused on the launch of the new Invivo X SJP Rosé wine into New Zealand, Ireland, the UK and the USA, and efforts in Taiwan and Japan are on the agenda, according to the company.

Carousell has appointed Archetype Hong Kong as its retainer PR agency to strengthen the brand’s position in the Hong Kong market and significantly increase its market share. The agency will drive a comprehensive media relations program to generate positive awareness while growing Carousell’s brand equity in Hong Kong.

Walter Cheung, MD of Walter Cheung Communications and a marathon KOL in Hong Kong, has received sponsorship from ASICS as an ASICS Runner. Cheung is an amateur runner who expects to complete his 100th full marathon in coming months. He has competed in full marathons on six continents, including the World Marathon Majors. He also writes newspaper columns and is a frequent speaker on distance running. Cheung was formerly head of corporate communications and corporate sustainability at Hang Seng Bank for 25 years. He started his consultancy a year ago.

Universal Music Greater China, a division of Universal Music Group (UMG), appointed Nan Jin as head of communications, effective immediately. She joins from 20th Century Fox Film, where she served as marketing director for China. She will oversee communications within Greater China across both the recorded music and music publishing divisions. She will be based in Beijing and report to Sunny Chang, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Greater China, and Will Tanous, UMG’s EVP and head of global communications. Jin has also held roles at Nanfang Media Group and Caixin Media.

Philippines-based independent agency Xiklab Digital has hired Frank Francisco who joins its leadership team as digital media director, effective June 15, 2020. Francisco brings over 6 years of digital and performance media experience to the role.  Xiklab says its decision to continue its work-from-home policy until the end of 2020 for its 80+ digital marketing team has allowed them to invest more in people than real estate space.

Dentsu Aegis Network has appointed Hilary Lee to head of solutions design, APAC, leading the development of integrated strategy and solutions for both existing clients and new opportunities. Based in Singapore, she will report into Yusuke Kasahara, CEO, Solutions APAC. Solutions sits across DAN’s portfolio of brands aimed at giving business value to clients through integrated thinking, strategies and products. 

Marketing technology firm InMobi is expanding its leadership team and product offerings in Southeast Asia that includes marketing cloud solutions for CMOs and its Pulse mobile survey service along with a demand-side platform (DSP) and exchange/sell side-platform (SSP). To facilitate expansion, they've appointed Purwa Jain, formerly of Hooq and Pokkt as director for brand, agency and programmatic business. Also, Sudhanshu Saxena has been named as director of strategic partnerships for SEA to oversee DSP partnerships in addition to the direct brand partnerships he managed earlier. Both are based in Singapore.

R/GA appointed Ben Miles as executive creative director for business transformation in Asia Pacific. Based in Sydney, he was previously ECD at Interbrand Australia for nine years. He will be charged with growing the company's business transformation consulting offering along with a global multi-disciplinary team of consultants, designers, strategists, and technologists in seven offices. He will report to Mike Rigby, R/GA’s global head of brand transformation, based in New York.

OOH ad tech firm Moving Walls has added former JCDecaux India sales director Ashutosh Sharma to head its demand business in India to drive the growth of its programmatic Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) offerings.  In Singapore, Nisha Varman, former regional commercial director at Phar Partnerships has been appointed to head the demand business there, likewise promoting the adotpion of OOH programmatic capabilities and automated planning and measurement tools.

1 Play Sports appointed Jesal Parekh, formerly COO of Team Flash in Singapore, as its head of esports. He will be tasked with driving 1 Play Sports' expansion in esports in Southeast Asia. Before Team Flash he was with OpTic Gaming in the US as international development director, leading the company's expansion into India, Southeast Asia, Mexico and Brazil. Parekh's vision is to create quality content and amateur level tournaments across Southeast Asia, he said in a release.

Digital experience agency UnDigital opened an office in Ho Chi Minh City this week, appointing Tran Van Tai to run it. He was previously with Silverstripe Viet. The office of four has been set up in one of the Dreamplex locations in Ho Chi Minh City. The agency, founded by Kristen and Andrew Cornale in Sydney, works with brands including Landcom, Wisdom Homes, Hoot Homes, Hipages and Fit Nutrition.