Emmanuel Allix

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) announced a series of agreements with four other leading marketing organisations for future collaboration: the CMO Council, International Advertising Association (IAA) UK Chapter, The Marketing Society and The Marketing Academy. Spanning a number of new initiatives, the partnerships all form part of MMA’s aims to promote and educate, which form two of the five elements of the Association’s core building blocks to promote, educate, measure, guide and protect.

Emmanuel Allix, Vice-president and Managing Director, Asia Pacific at InMobi has been elected to the Mobile Marketing Association’s Asia Pacific Board of Directors for 2011. The key focus areas for the new MMA APAC Board will be: to promote the mobile channel to increase mobile marketing spend in the region; educate brands, agencies and consumers about the full scale and scope of the mobile marketing channel; create and develop authoritative measurement, metrics and insight into the size, growth, trends and effectiveness of mobile marketing; roll out the next set of guidelines, best practices and standards for the industry; and protect opportunities by managing industry self-regulatory programs.


Dene Schonknecht

Mediabrands announced the appointment of Dene Schonknecht as Chief Information Officer, Asia Pacific. Based in Singapore, Dene’s primary responsibility will be to establish and maintain synergies between Mediabrands’ technology and business organizations, ensuring consistency with the group’s regional and global business strategy.

Dene brings a wealth of technology and communications expertise to the Mediabrands network. Previously Dene was Global Industry Manager at Microsoft, where he specialized in the Communications sector for a decade. During his 15 years in the technology industry, Dene has maintained a strong business development focus, and in the past five years he has gained a deep familiarity with the global Media & Entertainment industry.

With approximately 1,000 media and marketing experts across the region, Asia Pacific remains a top priority for Mediabrands. The region is a key component of the firm’s strategy to accelerate market share for its clients around the world.


Louis Au Kwok-Leung

Ruckus Wireless™, the Smart Mobile internetworking company, announced the appointment of long-time HP Veteran, Louis Au Kwok-Leung, as its Vice President for Asia Pacific.

Au will be responsible for expanding the Ruckus business within this rapidly growing region and increasing its capacity to respond more effectively and rapidly to the tremendous growth opportunities in Asia Pacific, the fastest growing market for the company.

The appointment of Au follows the recent announcements of key managers in Southeast Asia, India and Australia/New Zealand. The expansion of the Ruckus management team reflects the dramatic growth of Wi-Fi within the APAC market driven by the migration to higher speed 802.11n technology and the upsurge in demand for smarter Wi-Fi to meet new enterprise and carrier demands for highly reliable and multimedia-ready wireless solutions.

Au has over 20 years of professional experience in the networking and telecommunications industry. Prior to joining Ruckus, he was vice president and general manager for HP’s ProCurve networking in Asia Pacific and Japan. Before that, he spent over 16 years at Nortel Networks, where he held a number of executive and senior management positions in the areas of enterprise voice and data, e-business and operations. He has worked with leading operators and enterprises to establish their wireless infrastructure in the region.

Au graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Surrey. He is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, and is based in Singapore.


Frederic Giron

Springboard Research, a leading innovator in the IT Market Research industry, announced Frederic Giron to be the new face heading the IT Services team. As Vice President, IT Services, Frederic Giron is in charge of the Services Research Practice for Springboard Research. Mr. Giron is responsible for the strategic direction and growth of the company’s IT Services practice, with an aim to provide better market insights to Springboard Research clients. He is primarily involved in expanding and developing the research coverage of the Asia Pacific IT Services market and development of Asia Pacific and Middle East/ Africa based research and consulting accounts. Prior to joining Springboard Research, Frederic’s role as a Research Director at Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) included development and maintenance of market models and forecasting methodologies on Software and IT Services markets, including the management of research activities for Southern Europe. Before PAC, he has worked as a SAP consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Seepij Gupta

Seepij Gupta, has been appointed as an Associate Research Manager with the Springboard Research IT Services team. We will undertakes research activities in tracking the IT Services market across the Asia Pacific region. Seepij’s role includes closely watching key market developments in the IT Services industry, analyzing channel dynamics impacting various industry verticals and business segments along with providing competitive analysis in the Asia Pacific region. His focus is on tracking the IT Services market and also emerging services markets like Remote Infrastructure Management, Datacenter services, Application Management and Cloud services. Seepij’s expertise also makes him a sought after speaker at industry conferences and events and his technology insights have been quoted by a number of international newspapers and trade publications. Prior to joining Springboard Research, Seepij served as a Senior Market Analyst with IDC’s Asia/Pacific Domain Research group covering Computing Systems and tracking datacenter and Cloud services and solutions. Before IDC Asia Pacific, Seepij was with IDC India, as a Manager for Consulting and Customized, Software and Services Research. During this time, he led the IT Services and consulting practice pioneering several research papers on Datacenter services, Unified communication, IT Security and Cloud services.


Richard Dunmall

Microsoft Advertising has promoted Richard Dunmall, former Vice President for the Greater Asia Pacific and Americas region, to Vice President Global Agencies and Accounts, a position that will allow him to use to advantage his wealth of experience in Asia.

Richard will re-locate from Hong Kong to New York to take charge of the newly combined Global Agencies and Global Accounts teams. Richard’s new role will see him take overall responsibility for driving revenue with the largest advertisers and key advertising agencies globally. He will report directly to Microsoft Advertising’s global corporate vice president, Carolyn Everson. Prior to his new global role, Richard was responsible for all advertising revenues generated across Microsoft Advertising’s entire portfolio of products and experiences across the Greater Asia Pacific region and the Americas.


Mark Britt

Microsoft’s Consumer & Online (C&O) division has strengthened its regional marketing team in Asia Pacific (APAC) as part of the company’s focus to enrich the consumers’ experience across the multiple platforms - PC, TV, phone and internet.

Haresh Khoobchandani

Led by Mark Britt, the division’s General Manager for APAC, and Haresh Khoobchandani, its Chief Marketing Officer, the new team will help to drive audience engagement for Microsoft’s consumer brands including Windows, Windows Live, MSN, Bing, Internet Explorer and Windows Phone.

Priscilla del Castillo

Priscilla del Castillo will join the C&O team as the Mobility Services Lead focusing on driving mobile partnerships for Windows Live. Priscilla will be relocating to Singapore from Seattle. She has been with Microsoft for five years and last assumed the role of a Digital Marketing Program Manager in Redmond.

Leveena Sadanandan

Leveena Sadanandan joins C&O as the Consumer Marketing Communications Lead for Southeast Asia. In this role, Leveena will lead the region’s marketing communications efforts. An established marketing professional with regional experience, Leveena comes with strengths in integrated campaigns and consumer engagement and brings with her a passion and a strong understanding of the consumer audience. She began her career in the creative field before moving on to marketing in entertainment, retail and broadcasting industries. She was previously with Visa, where she spent the last six years planning and executing regional marketing programs.

Jonathan Wong

Jonathan Wong joins C&O as the lead for Internet Explorer, responsible for developing and sustaining collaboration with partners in markets across the region. With over nine years of experience in the IT industry, Jonathon brings an in-depth understanding of the web to his new role. He was most recently the Web Platform Evangelist with Microsoft Singapore. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was with IBM.

Don Paterson

Don Paterson relocates from the company’s headquarters in Redmond to join the C&O team in Singapore, and will be leading the Consumer Windows business in Asia Pacific. With more than 11 years with Microsoft, Don brings a wealth of relevant experience and skills to his new role, along with a reputation for high standards of performance, results-oriented problem solving and strong cross-organizational leadership. He has worked in a variety of roles and was most recently with the Windows Consumer business group. His vast experience and deep understanding of the Windows business will bring a unique end-to-end view of the business across sales, marketing and the broader ecosystem.

Keith Kok

Keith Kok joins the C&O Marketing team as the Windows Live Product Manager for Southeast Asia. He will own the Windows Live go-to-market strategy and execution for Southeast Asia. Keith is transitioning from his previous role in the Singapore subsidiary where he led the digital marketing execution and has won a series of internal accolades for his digital work.

Mark Ma relocates to Singapore from Shanghai and will be leading the Windows Live + Online Audience Business Group in Asia Pacific. In this role, he is tasked with growing the company’s audience across its online properties. Mark brings with him valuable skill sets in Search, which will be critical in driving Microsoft’s integration with Yahoo and the growth of Bing in this region. Prior to taking up this position, Mark was C&O’s Regional Search Director driving the search and search monetization business in the Greater Asia Pacific region. He was also involved in Microsoft’s partnership initiatives in China, Japan, Australia and Korea. Mark comes with a deep online background in both audience and monetization. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was with Yahoo! Search.


Global Human Resources (HR) software and services provider, NorthgateArinso has announced the appointment of Raj Sundarason, who will be based in Singapore, as its Regional Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions. This appointment came as NorthgateArinso opened their new APAC headquarters office in Singapore last month, following their acquisition of Convergys earlier this year.

Sundarason previously managed client relationships and strategy with a global HRO provider specialising in multi-process, multi-country HR outsourcing for six years, where he successfully brought together customer needs and supplier capabilities to close complex HR outsourcing deals. In his new role with NorthgateArinso, he will have responsibility for developing and overseeing the regional sales function, as well as driving growth and key marketing strategies throughout each territory. Sundarason will be overseeing NorthgateArinso’s global growth strategy in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa markets.


SinoMedia Holding Limited, a leading privately-owned media advertising operator in China providing nationwide TV advertising coverage for clients on China Central Television Station and other media advertising resources, appointed Mr. Tang Xiaoming as Chief Investment Officer. He will be responsible for managing and monitoring investment activities, maintaining relations with the investor community, as well as identifying and implementing short-term and long-term investment opportunities for the Group's sustainable growth.

Prior to joining SinoMedia, Mr. Tang was the Senior Vice President of Redgate Media Group from 2005 to 2009, an integrated media and entertainment company in China. From 2000 to 2003, he was the Chief Financial Officer in Wanmo Performance Advertising, responsible for the financing and overall financial management. He also worked for Tyco International Ltd. from 1998 to 1999, responsible for mergers and acquisitions of projects and investments. Mr. Tang gained his MBA degree from the University of Chicago in 2005 and a BA degree in Economics from Renmin University, China in 1995.


The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) elected two new Vice-Presidents. The President of KBS-Korea, Kim In-Kyu, and the Director General of PBC-Pakistan, Murtaza Solangi, were elected unopposed to the ABU posts at the end of the 47th ABU General Assembly on 19-20 October, 2010 in Tokyo. They replace Manuel Goncalves of TDM-Macau and Hassan Khojasteh of IRIB-Iran. Both will join the President, Yoshinori Imai, and Vice-President Ibrahim Yahaya in the ABU leadership group. RTB-Brunei was elected to the ABU Administrative Council and BBS-Bhutan and KBS-Korea were re-elected.


C Y Foundation Group Limited has announced the appointment of Mr. Li Zhuo as Online Game Marketing Director. Mr. Li will be responsible for the marketing promotion of the Group's massively multiplayer online role-playing game 'Rohan' and lead the formulating of mid-term and long-tem marketing and product strategy. Mr. Li has 10 years experience in the online game industry and prior has been editor for mainstream gaming media and marketing director for many well known online game companies. Before joining C Y Foundation, Mr. Li was the marketing director of Beijing Guangyu Online Technology Co., a subsidiary of Hong Kong listed company Coslight Technology international Group, where he developed the business rapidly. Its 2009 turnover recorded RMB800 million and Guangyu Games was ranked as the 7th largest online game operators in China. The peak concurrent online players for a single online game exceeded one million users in 2009.


On October 20, 2010 Experian® celebrated the launch of Experian Marketing Services in Cyberjaya. Officiated by Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, the event served to officially introduce Marketing Services and recognize Experian’s impressive presence in Cyberjaya. With a staff of 185 and growing, the addition of Marketing Services in May 2010 demonstrates Experian Malaysia’s success in serving both local and global clients and seizing new opportunities for growth.

Products offered include Hitwise, CheetahMail and QAS services, which help customers use data, connect with customers and make the internet work for them. With over 30 years of experience in markets across the globe, Experian has developed an unparalleled portfolio of services in addition to Marketing Services, including Decision Analytics, Credit Services and Interactive that span the entire spectrum of the customer life cycle.


Luxury Singapore-based hotel chain Meritus Hotels & Resorts assigned creative agency iris with creating a global campaign to re-launch the brand following a competitive pitch. The campaign will see iris create a refreshed identity for Meritus, with the aim of positioning the brand that offers travellers the best in traditional Asian hospitality combined with the best in modern luxury accommodation. This month, iris has also been tasked with handling all the advertising and communications for the launch of the new Audi A8 and has recently launched global brand campaigns for DKNY Jeans, Sony Ericsson and Johnnie Walker Black Label. iris’ award-winning Singapore operation, which was launched in 2006, serves as a strategic hub for Asia Pacific, and is now a 60-strong office, making it one of the fastest growing agency networks in the region.