Photos: 2017 Agency Network of the Year people/team award winners

Asia-Pacific Agency Head of the Year (Creative) | Kent Wertime & Chris Reitermann | Ogilvy Asia: Longtime Ogilvy APAC head Paul Heath left some large shoes behind when he departed for a global role in 2016. At first, industry wags wondered why it would take four feet to fill those shoes, but the co-CEO approach seems to be working for Ogilvy & Mather. The agency’s ongoing transformation from a collection of distinctly branded disciplines to a single enterprise that marshals its resources on behalf of client needs seems to be working. As just one measure. Ogilvy finished atop R3’s New Business League for last year (nearly doubling the dollar-value of the second-place agency) and has led it for most of this year as well. As another, APAC’s contribution to Ogilvy’s global revenue is growing by a healthy percentage. In the last year, Wertime and Reitermann have been focussed on talent: clarifying and fulfilling needs; simplifying HR processes; and unifying the workforce with training.

Asia-Pacific Agency Head of the Year (Media) | Susana Tsui | PHD APAC: Since taking over from Cheuk Chiang in 2013, Tsui has presided over a tripling of the network’s size in APAC while maintaining what PHD calls its feisty, challenger/startup mentality. Her achievements in 2017 include onboarding the VW business, getting PHD Korea up and running, winning more than 70 pieces of new business, getting 100% of clients onto the company’s bespoke planning software, called Source, and launching the network’s latest thought-leadership centrepiece, Merge. Another important point of emphasis has been diversity, not just in terms of gender but including people from all walks of life.

Asia-Pacific Agency Head of the Year (Digital) | Tuomas Peltoniemi | TBWA's Digital Arts Network Asia: Peltoniemi focused this year on a proprietary five step process of building custom marketing operating systems for individual clients. The network credits the model with driving 9.5% revenue growth regionally, with new systems including NURVE for Nissan, Digital OS for Standard Chartered, Destination Newsroom for Singapore Tourism Board, and e-commerce optimisation for Singapore Airlines. The network also launched future-focussed operations including a data insights platform; the TBWA\Brand Xcelerator providing mentorships to startups; Disruption Consulting; and TechShop, a workshop and fabrication studio.

Asia-Pacific Creative Person of the Year | Nils Andersson | TBWA\Asia: Andersson, who became TBWA’s first regional creative president in June 2016, leads the regional Creative Collective, which consists of 17 chief creative officers who work together to achieve the overall vision of being recognised as the agency that creates the most memorable work for clients. Andersson focuses on building an environment where his teams thrive, and is proud to note that the network has five women running creative departments across the region (he also recognises that work can still be done on this count).

Asia-Pacific New Business Development Team of the Year | Mindshare New Business Team | Mindshare: To illustrate this team’s success, Mindshare points to the network's position atop R3’s 2016 New Business League, where it finished with 150% the revenue of its closest competitor. In 2017, Mindshare “powered” the GroupM team that brought in the LVMH Group. The strength of the team lies not in a few individuals, but in a network of intelligent, provocative, and ambitious people who all have one goal in mind, according to the company.

Asia-Pacific Strategic/Brand Planner of the Year | Hari Ramanathan | Y&R Asia: Colleagues say Ramanathan’s astute understanding of the people of Asia gives him a unique angle on how to build brands. He believes that this is the most exciting time to be in advertising and is investing heavily in talent and relationships. He is laser focussed on ensuring every piece of work drives business results for clients and their brands, according to the company.

Asia-Pacific Channel/Engagement Planner of the Year | Lucy McCabe | OgilvyRED: McCabe launched OgilvyRED, the network’s consulting offering, in Asia Pacific in 2017. Under her leadership, OgilvyRED has grown to a core team of 20 consultants working together with 400 specialist strategists in local markets in six specialist practices (data, brand, customer, commerce, influence and technology). OgilvyRED has driven over $4 million in revenue during 2017, according to the company.

Asia-Pacific Talent Management Person/Team of the Year | Sue Olivier | Ogilvy Asia Pacific: Talent is a key part of Ogilvy’s ‘Next chapter’ initiative, and Olivier is the senior executive driving talent development across 30 offices in 18 APAC countries. She’s responsible for setting the strategy for learning and talent development for the network in Asia and works with her team across all the markets to guide, support and oversee talent local initiatives.

Asia-Pacific Programmatic Agency Person of the Year | Rahul Raj | Amnet: Raj has contributed significantly to the growth of AMnet from a two-person team to 36 across the region. He was most recently promoted to the newly created role of regional programmatic trading lead to oversee programmatic traders in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. He drives the team to deliver the best results on all campaigns achieving client satisfaction and leading to increased client spends by as much as 60%. He is a great representation of what the company says every programmatic person should strive to do: make every impression count.