Move and win roundup: Week of March 21, 2022

Campaign compiles a new 'Move and win roundup' as each week progresses.  This edition will cover March 21 through 25, 2022.  Catch up on past people moves and business wins.

Till Payments an Australia-based fintech company has promoted Tanya Green into the newly created role of chief customer officer within its executive leadership team. Green first joined Till in March 2021 as its head of Brand & Customer Experience. 

Mediaocean, an omnichannel advertising solutions provider, has announced two appointments to its team in the Japan and Asia-Pacific region focused on Flashtalking, its platform for ad management, creative and insights. Michael Serratore has been appointed account director, JAPAC, while Jay Smith joins the business as sales director. Both executives will be based in Melbourne, Australia. Serratore was previously business director at Wavemaker ANZ and Smith joins Mediaocean from MiQ Digital. 

Redhill, a Singapore-headquartered communications agency, appointed Marta Bigio as senior director of sustainability. She previously held senior roles at agencies such as Hill & Knowlton, and in-house positions at Mars, Crocs and Unilever. At Unilever, she was global senior communications manager for sustainable sourcing. She will enhance sustainability-led offerings for Redhill clients in addition to overseeing the company’s internal sustainability initiatives.

Carnival Australia appointed This is Flow as agency of record across four key brands: Princess Cruises, Seabourn Cruises, Cunard Line and Holland America Line. The agency will manage all media planning and buying in Australia and New Zealand and has been tasked with reconnecting audiences and putting cruising back on the travel agenda.

GroupM agency Essence made three leadership appointments in India. Based in Bengaluru, Bharati Joshi will lead the agency’s product offering as vice president of product. Kunal Danda will head the Mumbai office as vice president of client services for India. And in Delhi, Vinish Mathews will lead the agency’s partnership with key client Google as vice president of client services for India and Southeast Asia. All three will report to Sonali Malaviya, India MD. Joshi has over 17 years of industry experience and joins from Initiative, where she was assistant vice president for strategy and insights. She previously held roles at GroupM’s Wavemaker and Maxus. Danda has more than two decades of media and marketing experience in India and the Middle East at agencies including OMD, Edelman and Digitas. He was most recently principal partner at Mindshare in Mumbai. Mathews has over 18 years of industry experience in China and India and joins from Mindshare, where he was most recently MD overseeing Beijing and Shanghai.

Vice Media Group (VMG) appointed Lou Wee to lead sales and brand partnerships as it scales its commercial presence across Asia Pacific with a focus on Vice World News. He joins from the South China Morning Post where as head of sales he helped accelerate the Post’s early advertising recovery amidst the pandemic. He has also held senior commercial roles at CNBC Asia and The Wall Street Journal Asia. Vice World News has editorial teams in Singapore, Australia, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Cavai, which describes itself as a cloud-based conversational ad experience company, appointed Jonathan Pacey as APAC commercial director, based in Singapore. He was previously sales director at mobile-first advertising company Kargo. He has also served as senior strategic advisor at discovery and native advertising platform Taboola and as head of brands and agencies at web recommendation platform Outbrain.

Ampverse, an esports organization, announced an official partnership with Razer, a lifestyle brand for gamers. The collaboration will enable Ampverse's Bacon Time team to continue its growth under the Team Razer Banner, the companies said. 

Brand experience agency Uniplan has extended its board team with Amanda Chen returning as CFO and Andrew Au joining as CSO. Chen will oversee global finances out of the Shanghai office and Au will be based out of Beijing. Both have joined the global board together with Christian Zimmermann (chairman & group CEO), Melanie Mucha (chief HR officer), Rüdiger Maeßen (CEO Europe) and Todd Nash (CIO).

Media strategy agency Slingshot has won the media strategy, planning and buying account for yoghurt brand Five:am and its owner Barambah Organics. This win arrives for Slingshot on the back of winning the Four Pillars Gin account recently.

303 MullenLowe Sydney has been appointed by BuyersBuyers for a remit that spans the full breadth of its communications offering including brand positioning, visual identity, CX planning, website optimisation, martech consultancy and media conversion modelling. The agency has also been appointed by the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) to undertake international marketing to promote Australia’s export offering. 

Media platform Teads has promoted Christian Guinot to APAC CEO. Guinot has launched Teads in multiple markets including Singapore, Hong Kong, ANZ and South Korea in the last five years, and has expanded the business in new territories including India, China, and Indonesia. The company also made a number of other promotions including Sam Pattison to Southeast Asia managing director; Christopher Maksymuk to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Greater China managing director; Yukihiko Imamura to Japan and South Korea managing director; and the appointment of Diogo Andrade a VP of sales in Singapore. 

Green Park Content has snagged two accounts: Globe Telecom in the Philippines and the launch of Indofood-owned Maxicorn in Indonesia. For Globe Telecom, Green Park Content won the postpaid business which includes branding, visual identity, and creative assets development. Ish Reyes, senior account manager in the Philippines, led this pitch and is currently managing the account. Meanwhile, the firm also won the social media account to launch Indofood’s new brand Maxicorn. The scope of work includes full digital services, social media maintenance, campaign launch and creative production for the Maxicorn brand in the Indonesian market. Sophia Seddarassan, associate account director in Indonesia, will manage this account. 

Adrian Tso, previously group strategy director of DDB Group Hong Kong, has been promoted to head of strategy. Tso has been with DDB since 2015 and part of the group’s leadership team since 2019. Tso will now focus on delivering deeper insights for clients by better integrating DDB’s in-house data offering into the strategic process. He will also spearhead the agency’s growing brand strategy and design offering.

Following a competitive pitch, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia has been named lead creative agency for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières Australia. Saatchi & Saatchi is set to work alongside fellow Publicis Groupe agency, Digitas, which will focus on the digital and customer experience requirements for MSF in Australia and New Zealand.

It’s Friday has been appointed by Colonial First State (CFS) to deliver a new brand platform and first advertising campaign since becoming a standalone business in December last year. The appointment will see It’s Friday develop a new campaign and brand platform which will focus on CFS' strengths as one of the largest retail superannuation and investment businesses in Australia and largest payer of pensions in the country after the federal government.

Pakistan digital agency, Digitz, has tied up with Publicis Groupe's Digitas to form a new entity named Digitz-Digitas. This deal will give Digitz access to Digitas’ global network and access to resources, tools, and brands. Digitz counts Coca-Cola, L’Oréal Pakistan, GSK Consumer Healthcare, Tetra Pak, Nestle Corporate and Colgate-Palmolive as clients. The agency has also hired Sinan Khan Durrani as account executive. 

Seeme Productions, a film production company in Pakistan, has hired Ramsha Kohati as a producer.

Also in Pakistan, Starcom affiliated Brainchild Communications hired Sana Shakeel in the strategy team, Nabeel Ahmed as a media buyer, and Waleed Jawaid and Sarosh Zafar as senior media planners.