NeilS_Dr. Neil Sunderland steps down as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of XING AG effective May 24, 2013. He will also be leaving the Supervisory Board entirely to devote himself to new projects.

Sunderland was already a member of the advisory committee before the company went public and had held the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board since the company was converted into XING AG in 2006. During this time, the company increased its turnover sevenfold and boosted membership figures from less than one million to roughly 13 million.

The nomination committee of XING AG’s Supervisory Board will convene at short notice to decide on how the supervisory body will be organized in the future. The company will submit an election proposal to the Annual General Meeting, when the agenda is presented.


UlrDr. Ulrike Handel is in office as Chair of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ad pepper media International N.V. She succeeds Ulrich Schmidt, who left the company in October 2012.

Since 1999, ad pepper media, as an experienced and professional partner, has been providing individually tailored solutions for all questions connected with online advertising. Today, the company possesses altogether 12 branches in six European countries and in the USA and handles campaigns for thousands of national and international advertising clients in currently more than 50 countries.

Dr. Ulrike Handel has already joined the Supervisory Board of ad pepper media International N.V. in May 2012. She came to ad pepper media from the Bertsch Innovation Group, where she, as a member of the management board, had been responsible for the expansion and the development of the group which is made up of companies from the fields of IT, publishing, digital, agencies, sports and fashion.

Before that, Dr. Handel had been working for Axel Springer AG for eleven years, where her posts included a seat on the management board of the WELT Group/Berliner Morgenpost and as Head of "Classifieds" sector comprising online marketplaces like Stepstone and Immonet.


rodSDigital connectivity solutions provider Gefen appointed Rod Sommerich to the Asia Pacific region. As the Far East and Pacific Rim Regional Sales Director, he will oversee all sales efforts throughout this important region.

Sommerich brings an extensive background in the professional audio/video and broadcast markets, having worked in these industries since 1984. He has held positions in operations, distribution, marketing, product management, business development and manufacturing.

Fortified with deep expertise in Asian, Australian and New Zealand modes of business operations, including distribution, sales, channel development and networking, Sommerich is tasked with leading the expansion of Gefen sales in the region.

Sommerich is based in the Sydney area of Australia. He held previous positions at Image Design Technology, SpinetiX and Amber Technology.


MEF, the global association for mobile content and commerce, announce the results of the hotly contested MEF Asia Board elections held during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The newly appointed members:

  • Chaitanya Devalapally, Associate Vice President, Operations, IMImobile;
  • Dippak Khurana, Founder & CEO, Vserv.mobi;
  • Ronen Mense, VP, Sales & Business Development APAC, MassiveImpact;
  • Nitish Mittersain, CEO and Founder, Nazara Technologies;
  • Milind Pathak, Global Head New Business, One97 Communications Ltd;
  • Marcus Tan, Managing Director, Smaato Inc.;
  • Kugan Thirunavakarasu, Senior GM/Head of Product & Infotainment Business, Maxis Communications Berhad.

The seven new board members appointed for a two year term will join the incumbent board directors from Hungama, inMobi, InternetQ, Mono Technology and Netbiscuits, and together will pioneer new forms of market collaboration and advancement

Colin1Several of the newly appointed directors are based in India which will pave the way for MEF to develop this key strategic growth market. To recognise this, MEF Asia will host its first dedicated event in India in Mumbai on the 15th April. The platform will provide mutual business opportunities and knowledge sharing for both India based and global members.

Colin Miles, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at InternetQ was re-elected as MEF Asia Chair for the region and is joined by incumbent Director Neeraj Roy, CEO Hungama and Milind Pathak, One97 Communications as Vice Chairs. The MEF Asia chapter is an integral part of MEF’s global footprint.


Crowbar Festival 2013 welcomes Ali Shabaz, Chief Creative Officer, Grey Singapore, Indonesia as Chairman & Jury President and Deng YingZhi, Art Director, Grey Singapore as Co-Chair

Ali_Shabaz_048_final_resizedAli’s career spans over twenty years across three markets, India, Middle East and Singapore. He has worked on various big brands such as Visa, HSBC, KFC, FedEx, Pizza Hut, and more. Under his leadership since 2010, Grey Singapore has won every international creative award and earned itself the number two spot in the creative rankings in Singapore.

A slew of awards - 14 Cannes Lions, Effies, Silver nominations at D&AD, One Show Pencils, Clios, Grand Prix at Media Spikes, Grand Prix at Ink Awards – have placed him firmly among the top creative leaders in Asia.

Ali has been ranked among the 10 “ hottest” creative people in Asia by Campaign Brief and one of the top 10 ECD’s in the region. He was being honoured “Advertising Professional of the Year” by Institute of Advertising Singapore (IAS) and has been voted one of the “Most Influential Creative Directors” in Singapore by IAS every year, since 2007.

YingzhiYingzhi had her first tryst with advertising at Ogilvy Singapore and that's where she grew over the next 4 years, working on brands like Coke, Huggies, Economist, Getty Images, Prudential, GE Money and Health Promotion Board.

Two years ago, she joined Grey Singapore, focusing more on digital work for clients. She is a Crowbar alumnus who had her first taste of fame as a student in 2006.

Since its inception in 2001, Crowbar is an annual platform for emerging young creatives to showcase their best works. Judged by leading creative practitioners across the five disciplines of Advertising, Design, Photography, Interactive and Film, it has gained regional, and international, recognition in recent years.


DanaSpotXchange, Inc., the largest global marketplace of digital video ad inventory, appointed Dana Caputo as Director of Private Marketplace Services. In this new role, Caputo will be in charge of helping publishers leverage programmatic selling on their own terms through an invite-only marketplace where they can select their best buyers and maintain 100 per cent control over their inventory.

Caputo has spent her digital advertising career focused on forward-facing business development solutions and strategic client partnerships. Most recently, Caputo played a critical role in the launch and development of Conde Nast’s private marketplace for display advertising, where she developed an expertise in the niche programmatic advertising space. Prior to Conde Nast, she worked in production roles at companies including Jerry Bruckheimer Films, ABC News and USA Today. Caputo graduated Cum Laude from The George Washington University with a degree in Communication.


OMD has been awarded the media duties for luxury watch maker, Audemars Piguet in the markets of Singapore and Malaysia.

The account was won after a competitive pitch with undisclosed agencies for a period of two years. The scope of work involves strategic media buying and planning across all media platforms.

The Audemars Piguet account is effective immediately. Prior to OMD, media planning and buying was mostly housed internally under Audemars Piguet.


DocDoc Pte. Ltd. (http://docdoc.com), Asia's leading medical specialist appointment portal, has announced a new strategic partnership with Chatter Buzz Media, a leading marketing agency in the U.S.

Chatter Buzz will work with DocDoc on the company's new Content Marketing Network by creating health-related content for publication and syndication worldwide. This partnership demonstrates DocDoc's commitment and market leadership position in the Asian healthcare industry.

DocDoc's Content Marketing Network is an integral new extension of its popular website, DocDoc.com. The Network, rolling out in Spring 2013, is an easy-to-use interactive content publishing platform that allows doctors to both pull and push content in multiple formats and languages to grow their medical practices.

Pull Content: DocDoc's Content Marketing Network provides a rich library of valuable marketing resources for dentists and doctors that include items such as white papers, how-to guides, sponsorship opportunities, events, performance analytics about their online brands, as well as connections to vendor-partners who can provide content production services such as cost-effective writing, video and photography assistance.

Push Content: Doctors can utilize DocDoc's Content Marketing Network to publish multimedia content on their doctor pages to engage the thousands of patients utilizing the DocDoc web site each day. Doctors can post videos, publish blog posts, add images of their staff or facility, and even participate in DocDoc's social media outreach and/or sponsorship programs. For many doctors with little or no online visibility, their doctor pages on DocDoc serve as their primary web presence, and DocDoc's Content Marketing Network makes it easier than ever for them to maintain a fresh and engaging presence online.

DocDoc understands Asia, with most of its management and key employees having worked in the region for the past decade. DocDoc's customer demographics reflect Asia's diverse population and cultural backgrounds, which is why it's the only healthcare portal in the world available in five languages including English, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Bahasa Indonesia.


SilkAir, the regional wing of Singapore Airlines, appointed DDB and OMD as its new creative and media buying agencies respectively, following a competitive selection process spanning three months.

The new appointments will see DDB collaborating closely with the airline on its brand communications on an initial two year contract beginning April 2013, whilst OMD’s media buying services for the Singapore market will commence in May 2013, also for a period of two years.

SilkAir called for proposals in December last year as part of a routine review. Submissions were received from several agencies including the incumbents, JWT for creative services, and Mindshare for media buying services.

In spite of the challenging environment, SilkAir has continued to generate healthy profit margins, with plans for rapid expansion with the order of 54 Boeing 737 aircraft, which will allow the airline to increase capacity on existing routes and add new routes to its network of 42 destinations.