Move and win roundup: Week of November 4, 2019

Campaign compiles a new 'Move and win roundup' as each week progresses.  This edition will cover November 4 through 8, 2019.  Catch up on past people moves and business wins.

Leo Burnett Sydney appointed Andrew Fergusson as executive creative director. Fergusson returns to Sydney from New York where was with Droga5 for just under four years, most recently as group creative director. He is the brains behind HBO’s #ForTheThrone campaign for Game Of Thrones’ final season, as well as the global launch of the Google Pixel 3. At Leo Burnett, he will replace Grant McAloon who sat in the same role for eight years. 

Twitch appointed Steve Ford, its longtime head of international sales, to a new role as the VP of APAC sales. Ford will be based in the Singapore office and will oversee hiring of a new in-house advertising department in Sydney, as well as sales activities throughout the region. Previously, Ford led the establishment of the Twitch UK and greater Europe sales team.

Wunderman Thompson appointed Neil Kelly to the newly created role of Sydney partner. He joins from Publicis Sapient, where he spent three years as client partner. He previously worked at Deloitte Digital in London and Australia in product and business strategy.

The Wired Agency expanded its performance division with the launch of an affiliate marketing solution. The offering will be led by performance director James Deehan, formerly performance director at CHE Proximity, and Wired Agency founder and MD Angela Hampton. Pizza Hut piloted the new service, and Assembly Label and several other key accounts are ready to adopt the channel, according to the agency.

Live brand experience agency INVNT has announced a few senior hires in the region including Fiona Pullen as executive producer in Sydney. Pullen will head up the production team in APAC and is joined by Emma Robinson as senior producer. Also in Sydney, 3D experiential design specialist Jonathan Fitzhenry joins as director of environmental design after 15 years as a freelance consultant where he worked with brands such as Microsoft, VW, Samsung and General Motors. Finally, Pardeep Kainth is recruited as director of account services in Singapore. 

Veritas has named James Leong as its new country manager in Singapore. He has been at Veritas since 2015, tasked to build teams and spearhead go-to-market strategies that have since contributed to multi-million-dollar projects. Prior to that, he was at Symantec where he looked after the public sector business. 

PR agency Zeno Group Singapore won the Sentosa Development Corporation account after a four-month pitch process. Zeno will support SDC across all its integrated communications needs, including collaborating with the wider brand and marketing teams on campaign rollouts as well as partnering with their creative and media buying agencies. In selecting Zeno, SDC was especially inspired by the firm’s strategic planning, data analytics and creative capabilities. 

91Springboard, a company that offers co-working spaces in India, has named Pitchfork Partners as its communication partner after a pitch. As part of the mandate, Pitchfork will oversee PR, online reputation management, and stakeholder engagement for the company. 91Springboard has co-working spaces in nine cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, and Hyderabad. 

Landor Australia has promoted Eeke Braaksma from client manager to client director. Braaksma  will move from the Melbourne office to Sydney to work alongside general manager Jessica Murphy. Braaksma has been a part of Landor’s global team for nearly seven years working in Landor offices in Hamburg, Sao Paolo, Singapore and Moscow before moving to Sydney in 2016. 

Chinese PR firm WE Red Bridge has appointed Bee Peng Tan as general manager of its Shanghai office. Tan brings 25 years of international experience to the agency, with an extensive background running China and regional business operations and accounts. In her new role, Tan will report to CEO Penny Burgess and oversee all Shanghai office operations, including the development and delivery of integrated communications strategy and solutions for agency clients.

Ben Hickey has been appointed as VP, client experience, healthcare at Weber Shandwick Singapore. Hickey joins the agency from London where he last served as Director and Consumer Health Lead, Healthcare division at Burson Cohn & Wolfe, looking after accounts such as Pfizer, Sanofi and GSK. 

Dentsu Aegis Network’s digital marketing agency Happy Marketer has been appointed by Singapore’s Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) as its brand storytelling partner. The agency will aim to IRO’s purpose in religious harmony by reaching out to Singapore’s youth. The year-long engagement has kickstarted a campaign called #YourReligionIn60Seconds, which aims to promote inter-faith dialogue. 

Wuling Motors has chosen Bounche Indonesia as its new digital agency in Indonesia. Dian Asmahani, senior brand manager at Wuling, and Yusuf Anshori, digital marketing manager at Wuling, said: “During the pitch, Bounche’s team come with us with innovative solutions to address our current situation to achieve both our branding and business objectives. Their team has shown a series of good track records as well in their previous experiences in handling end-to-end process from marketing until CRM business processes.”

Havas International, the international client-management unit of Havas Media Group, appointed Lizzie Nolan, previously head of integrated strategy at BBH Asia Pacific, as EVP and managing director for strategy and insights. She will report to Havas Media Group’s global chief client officer, Marc Schader. Prior to BBH, Nolan moved from MediaCom UK to Singapore in 2009 to take on the role of APAC strategy director on Proctor & Gamble. She was later promoted to head of strategic planning and then in 2013 set up the APAC MediaCom content marketing division.

French food company Danone awarded its media duties in China to Publicis Media's Spark Foundry.  The win, following a pitch, consolidates planning and buying duties across Danone's ELN (Early Life Nutrition) and DWC (Danone Waters China) business units. (Read more)

Nissan appointed Lavanya Wadgaonkar as general manager and head of global corporate communications, effective November 1. Based in Japan, she reports to Sadayuki Hamaguchi, chief communications officer. She will be responsible for strengthening the company’s reputation through executive communication, issues and crisis management, corporate narrative and media relations. With over 25 years of international experience in strategic communications, public affairs, brand management, marketing and sustainability, she has since 2016 led the communications and external and government affairs functions for Nissan Asia and Oceania. That followed a role leading corporate communications and sustainability strategy for Nissan in India, where she joined the company in 2012. Prior to Nissan, she worked at Lexmark, Reliance and Eaton.

Indian real estate developer Prestige Group has appointed Mirum to provide marketing automation services. Mirum will be responsible for implementation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as well as for data collection and integration.

Fiftyfive5 appointed Nick Williams to lead its performance monitoring team. Williams was most recently SVP with Edelman Intelligence in San Francisco and specializes in measurement strategy and data integration.

FleishmanHillard made a series of SVP appointments in Jakarta, Seoul and Hong Kong. (Read more)