Zinwave, a global provider of distributed antenna systems (DAS) for in-building cellular coverage, has expanded its commercial presence in Australasia in response to growing demand for “anywhere access” to Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) using MIMO (Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output) technology. In addition, the company recently announced to double its headcount within 12 months further to its acquisition by McWane Inc, a privately held manufacturing company based in the US and owners of a global group of wireless technology companies.

Christian Derrick has joined Zinwave as Director of Sales and Services for Australia and New Zealand and is based in Melbourne. Christian has over 19 years’ experience in the wireless and IP industries. Before joining Zinwave he was Technical Director, Europe and Technical Sales Director, Asia Pacific for SpiderCloud Wireless. He has held senior positions at Qualcomm Europe, Flarion Technologies, Vodafone UK & Vodafone Group, Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks. He has also led wireless pilots and deployments in Australia, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia.

Derek Paton has re-joined Zinwave as Vice President Business Development based in the Asia Pacific region. Derek also assumes executive management responsibility for the company’s sales and support teams in Asia Pacific and the Middle East regions. He has been involved in the wireless telecoms industry for over 30 years and has specialist knowledge of in-building cellular coverage solutions across multiple vertical markets. Coming from a technical background, he has held senior positions with a number of leading wireless telecoms companies including Allen Telecom, Mikom, LGC Wireless and ADC. Derek has been responsible for over 300 large in-building projects in the last 15 years, ranging from San Francisco International Airport to City of Dreams Casino Resort in Macau. Most recently he established a successful services organization offering DAS solutions to mobile operators.

Zinwave’s in-building DAS is the only system capable of supporting multiple cellular and public safety services between 150MHz and 2700MHz on a single hardware layer, regardless of protocol or modulation scheme. Furthermore, it is the only company that can support multiple FDD and TDD LTE services simultaneously across any spectrum allocated globally. Zinwave’s DAS offers building owners, telecom operators and neutral host providers an “install-once” solution, eliminating the need for expensive and disruptive upgrades to existing infrastructures to accommodate new services as they become available. Its straightforward design (comprising just four components) and unique technology delivers the most flexible solution in the in-building market place, with lowest total cost of ownership. The company has already a number of installations in the region, including Westfield Centrepoint, Sydney, Esplanade –Theatres on the Bay, Singapore and Solaire Manila, a luxury tourist and gaming complex in the Philippines.

 


 

The independent mobile media and video company, Vuclip, ink a strategic partnership with Tips, the pioneers in the Indian music industry, to bring popular Bollywood and Indipop music to mobile consumers. Their partnership expands the diversity and breath of music now available to the fast growing mobile audience of Vuclip. Content offerings include Bollywood and Indipop albums, movie scenes and other movie related content, which can now be enjoyed on any device and any network without buffering. You can visit m.vuclip.com or the Vuclip Android App to check out your favorite Tips album.

 

logo-brocadeBrocade announced the appointment of Gabriel Breeman to the newly created position of OEM director for Asia Pacific (APAC).

In this role, Breeman will drive OEM strategies, strategic partnerships and alliance initiatives for the region to help position Brocade as the data center networking partner of choice in the OEM partner business segment. Breeman will be based in Singapore and report directly to Brocade vice president for Asia Pacific (APAC), Adam Judd.

BrocadeBreeman was most recently the senior director for Global OEM at Fusion-io, where he was responsible for leading worldwide revenue growth strategies through OEM partners. Prior to Fusion-io, Breeman spent six years at Brocade as a Global Sales Executive and Corporate Account Director. He has also held direct end-user, indirect channel and OEM leadership roles at Dot Hill Systems and Sun Microsystems during his 20-year career in the Information Technology sector.

Brocade’s worldwide OEM partners include EMC, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and NetApp.

 

 


 

SpikesSpikes Asia Festival of Creativity, the region's foremost Festival and Awards for the creative communications industry, has officially opened for delegate registration.

This year sees a new format for the Festival as it grows from a 3-day to a 4-day event and moves to take place in the week following the Formula 1 Grand Prix, from 23-26 September in Singapore. Spikes Asia will encompass carefully curated seminars and forums, inspiring exhibitions of work, dedicated networking events and a celebratory Awards Ceremony which will bring the event to a close.

Two new entry categories are being introduced at Spikes Asia this year. The Innovation Category, which will award breakthrough technology and innovation, and a Healthcare Category which will honour the brave and innovative communications ideas that have overcome the unique challenges faced by healthcare brands, and succeeded - through creativity - in generating value and changing lives. Additions to the academy programme are also planned which will see increased learning opportunities across a broader spectrum of the industry.

Further details of all of the packages, along with how to register and be a part of the event, can be found on the Spikes Asia website.

 


 

Dentsu Indonesia announced the appointment of three senior industry leaders to its management team: Bobby Arthawan, Keat Soh and Kenji Nogami are gearing up for the next phase of growth in 2014 in their respective roles as President Director, Executive Creative Director, and Technical Advisor.

Bobby_ArthawanEarly in April, Dentsu Indonesia appointed Bobby Arthawan, an industry leader with over 17 years experience, as President Director and Keat Soh, a highly awarded creative with 20 years of experience across Asia-Pacific as Executive Creative Director.

Keat_SohMost recently the Chief Executive at GOMOBILE, Bobby with his extensive knowledge of the Indonesian market helped launch the country’s first independent mobile advertising platform. Keat, on the other hand, spent the last seven years in Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia, and last was Executive Creative Director at iris Worldwide where he led creative strategy for clients such as Diageo, Levis, Sony Mobile, and XL Telco.

Starting April, Dentsu veteran Kenji Nogami also moved from Singapore to take up the position of Technical Advisor at Dentsu Indonesia. With experience working across Dentsu offices in Japan, India, and Singapore, Kenji has been responsible for handling a number of regional accounts during his 20 years at the company. He was also responsible for managing Dentsu’s internal regional training program, the Dentsu Network Innovation College.

“This is a key time for Indonesia as the country is transitioning from having potential and promise, to actually delivering. With the arrival of these three professionals, Dentsu Indonesia is ready to harvest during these exciting times. Bobby’s experience and leadership qualities, combined with Keat’s creative power and Kenji’s vision really put us in the perfect position to deliver for our clients in a country that will only become a greater force in this region” said Dick van Motman, Chairman & CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network/SEA, of which the Dentsu Media Group Indonesia is a subsidiary.

 


 

LEWIS PR, the global PR and digital communications agency, has made two senior appointments to its management team in Singapore:

Jocelyn Ng-Foo joins as Associate Director and Scott Pettet as Vice President APAC.

JocelynJocelyn joins LEWIS from Edelman, where she was senior consultant. She brings 10 years of PR experience to the team and will manage several of LEWIS’s consumer and technology client campaigns.

Scott_PettetScott has been with the company for more than seven years, working out of the Sydney office. With 15 years of industry experience, he is tasked with elevating the company’s profile across the region and spearheading business development. He will move from Sydney to Singapore to drive the company’s regional sales and marketing programmes.

LEWIS has enjoyed strong growth across APAC in the last twelve months, with record revenues and a slew of new client wins including Airbnb, BBC Worldwide, Fitness First, Nikon, Porsche Asia Pacific and Spotify. Coupled with this business growth is also LEWIS' continued focus on its people. Strengthening the senior management team means other members of the team receive further training and development opportunities to help them grow into future leaders.

 


 

unifedCloud-based unified communications and social collaboration platform Unified Inbox officially sets up its international headquarters in Singapore, as a strategic move to grow the company globally and expand into the Asia region.

While still in the closed beta phase, Unified Inbox has already secured top tier telco companies, ISP and media partners for a global market roll out in 2015 as they see the huge potential of this Communication-as-a-Service platform as a simple, yet highly effective way of users taking control of their communications flow across email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or SMS.

Unified Inbox has several cloud solutions focused around unification and collaboration which work cross-platform. Their first offering is a Unified Inbox mobile app which allows users to manage all their incoming and outgoing messages centrally from within one interface. The start-up has embraced the idea of simply “Getting Things Done” and aim towards better productivity of the information worker. With functions like Swipe to Archive or Delete, Task-Delegation, Message Distribution or Deferring of messages by simple gestures, Unified Inbox gears up to become the future inbox management solution – no matter what the source of the message.

Unified Inbox is backed by internationally independent investors with deep insight into the verticals the company is set to operate in. To expand its Communication-as-a-Service platform globally and get ready for the international market launch, Unified Inbox is looking to raise further funds from investors in Singapore and the surrounding regions.

 


 

Stuart_DobbinYOOSE, the global hyper-local mobile ad network, announced the appointment of Stuart Dobbin as Regional Head, North Asia.

Dobbin will be based out of Hong Kong as part of a strategic move to better leverage opportunities in the advanced mobile advertising markets, especially in the Greater China area. He previously held senior positions with BCS Global Networks and Cable & Wireless and joins YOOSE with a focus on brand development, developing partnerships and building revenues.

Having a presence in Hong Kong will allow YOOSE to tap into a market with one of the highest smartphone penetration (87%) worldwide. Hong Kong, while also having a population that is receptive to mobile advertising, also acts as a hub to Greater China where a good majority of smartphone owners click on mobile advertisements. Its close proximity to Macau, a regional entertainment hub, also presents plenty of opportunities for the mobile ad network.

Dobbin’s appointment comes a few weeks after the announcement of YOOSE’s partnership with digital sales house OTM in Russia, and their successful massive campaign during the Sochi Olympic Games that has achieved over 5 million ad impressions in a span of 18 days for the city of Sochi alone.

 


 

header_logoMicroAd Singapore Pte Ltd, a leading Online Ad Platform company in Asia-Pacific countries, has launched a new service where advertisers are able to use Smartphone Ads through "MicroAd BLADE" in APAC countries.

MicroAd provides MicroAd BLADE, a Japanese Demand-Side-Platform (DSP) with RTB for online advertising, which enables clients to optimize the algorithm of advertising by using PCs and Smartphones.

For the Smartphone Ads delivery, advertisers are able to use "Broad reach", "Re-targeting" and "Audience targeting (after accumulation of users data)". Meanwhile, functions specific to a certain area also apply for this service.

MicroAd Group has already launched its regional subsidiary companies in the APAC region, including China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, India and the Philippines.

MicroAd BLADE is offered in Japanese, English and Chinese languages and supports Japanese Yen, US Dollars and Chinese Yuan as currencies for Asia since October 2012. To date, MicroAd BLADE has more than 7,000 Advertisers in Japan and 500 Advertisers in APAC countries.

 


 

Anwesh_headshotHavas Media Group has announced the appointment of distinguished media professional Anwesh Bose to the newly created role of Managing Director of Arena Indonesia.

Arena Indonesia is the second media brand of Havas Media Group and was launched late last year in the country as part of the Asia Pacific launch. The agency counts Indofood, one of the country’s largest FMCG advertisers, as a flagship client. Other brands handled by Arena include AIG, LG Electronics, Kakao Talk, Bakrie Telecom and Kalbe Farma (OTC).

In his new role, Anwesh will be responsible for developing Arena into an agile integrated agency, leveraging the strong specialist capabilities of the Indonesia operations. Reporting into Riadi Sugihtani, CEO of Havas Media Group, Indonesia, he will also provide strategic direction and oversee media delivery of the agency with strong focus on Indofood brands.

Anwesh joins the agency from DDB India, where he was the Senior Vice President and Business Head with a responsibility for media and digital business. Prior to this, he was the Chief Growth Officer for Dentsu Media in India. His 15 years in the industry has seen him working on leading brands such as Canon, Honda, Yamaha, Panasonic, FedEx, Midea, Amway, Twinings, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba, Unicharm, Aircel (Maxis), HBO & Suzlon to name a few.

His list of achievements includes being voted as a Future Leader and NextGen Media Magnate by industry publications Impact and Exchange4Media in India.

 


 

janHavas Media Ortega (HVMO) has appointed Jan Lorraine Cui as the agency’s newest business director to drive the agency’s relationship with key clients including Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Krispy Kreme and Jewelmer Joaillerie.

Jan has previously worked with Tequila Manila as an account director, where she led the rebranding campaign of China Bank Savings. She was also an account manager at JWT Manila where she managed the company’s design team, Sugar Rush.

Outside of work, she co-managed the iconic limited edition graphic t-shirts brand, Electromagnetic Tentacle (EMT).

Commenting on Jan’s appointment, Jos Ortega, Chairman and CEO of HVMO said: “As we strengthen our position in the integration space, we need leaders who have the breadth of experience across various specialist fields. Jan brings with her a deep understanding and appreciation of activation, design, advertising and digital, which will prove beneficial for our clients.”

 


 

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) announced the official launch of its local chapter in Vietnam on 25th March 2014, with an event at the Pullman Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, demonstrating their commitment to build and implement mobile marketing best practices in the country.

During the launch event, Tran Thi Lan Thanh, Chief Executive Officer of Goldsun Focus Media, a regional premier MMA member and first founding member of the Vietnam chapter, and Jacob Kvist, Chief Executive Officer, GroupM Vietnam, were named co-chairs of MMA Vietnam.

MMA_Vietnam_Official_Launch_Event

Responsible for shaping the dialogue around mobile in Vietnam in the coming years, the pair will be supported by three other founding members: Tran Thi Thanh Mai, General Director of TNS Media Vietnam; Phan Dang Tra My, Co-Managing Director of Admicro, and Nguyen Anh Tuan, Sales Director of Adtima (a member of VNG).

In addition to the launch of the Vietnam chapter, MMA also announced the 2014 return of its two flagship events, MMA Forum Vietnam and the SMARTIES™ Vietnam Awards. The MMA Forum (MMAF) Vietnam, is the biggest mobile marketing event in Vietnam and will take place in October 2014, welcoming major brands, mobile specific and traditional agencies, operators and technology enablers from across the mobile marketing landscape. The event will be followed by the eighth iteration of the SMARTIES™ Vietnam, which aims to recognize innovation, creativity and leadership in mobile marketing across a range of categories.

 


 

Luke_WaldrenGrey Group Australia announces the departure of CEO, Luke Waldren. He joined Grey Group four years ago and helped rejuvenate Grey Group by attracting high-calibre talent - as well as new business. He has now decided to turn his talents towards the client side of the industry.

Michael_KnoxNow, with immediate effect, Michael Knox, Executive Creative Director, will become the Managing Partner of Grey Melbourne and will continue to drive it forward. Michael is highly regarded in the industry and his creativity, passion and leadership is well-known. Paul Worboys, COO of Grey Group Australia and head of Grey’s Sydney office, together with Michael, will be responsible for managing the Australian operation.

 

 


 

MM24267LOGOVoltDB announced a technology partnership with Flytxt, a leading Big Data analytics solution provider to Communication Service Providers (CSPs). Flytxt has successfully integrated VoltDB's in-memory operational database with its real-time analytics platform, already being used in customer deployments to extract actionable intelligence from billions of events streaming each day from more than 200 million mobile subscribers.

Flytxt's Big Data analytics solutions enable more than 50 CSPs across 32 countries to increase revenues, reduce churn, drive data adoption and growth, optimize margins and generate new revenue streams through advanced analytical capabilities. Flytxt's platforms and applications are built around its patent pending technologies that interpret, infer, discover and predict KPIs, insights, recommendations and actions from large volumes of subscriber data available with CSPs. Leveraging VoltDB's technology, Flytxt platforms can now generate behavioral, threshold and transactional triggers faster.

 


 

wahaWAHA Offices, a Korean-based serviced office cum business incubator, announced its new office opening in Jakarta, Indonesia – their second in South East Asia. This comes after the opening of two other offices in Seoul, Korea and in Singapore. The company aims to serve as a business accelerator, offering programs with business matchmaking services and venture capital introduction along with expert consulting and administrative services with partner startups to grow at a quicker pace. Jakarta’s high mobile penetration rate – an average Indonesian has about two mobile phones – and with a young population of over 60 percent of Indonesia under the age of thirty-five, the new office is an excellent addition to a young country with so much room to explore and more opportunities for entrepreneurs. Under the leadership of CEO Joe Cho, WAHA has had a successful first year, which focused on establishing its presence in Korea and Singapore, with the clear objective of optimizing workflows in order to offer real value to its clients. For the next phase, WAHA has bold ambitions and plans to open up seven more offices by year’s end in locations including New York City, Bangkok, San Francisco, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Phnom Penh, Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City. As a business accelerator, WAHA believes that their programs have substantial benefits to fresh start-ups and stable small businesses that require an added boost to propel them to the next level. With an established network of businesses and links in Asia, the Korean-based business accelerator believes this gives them a competitive edge in the region.

 


 

abacusSingapore-based Abacus International, Asia-Pacific's leading provider of travel solutions and services, announced the appointment of Jeremy van de Klundert as Managing Director of the subsidiary Sabre Pacific, which is owned by Sabre and a consortium of Asia's leading airlines (including All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Dragonair, Philippine Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, SilkAir and Singapore Airlines) to take forward the distribution strategy for Australia and New Zealand. With over 26 years of experience in fusing international best practices and local expertise with global and local partnerships, Abacus provides travel information and reservations specifically tailored to the Asia-Pacific region.

Van de Klundert has served in similar roles, including five years with global distribution systems in Europe, three with a major travel agency and more recently five years with global assistance company International SOS in developing North Asia.

Sabre Pacific’s current distribution grid includes travel buyers at over 2,000 agency locations, supported from the company’s Sydney headquarters and local Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Auckland offices.

New Zealand national and MBA graduate, Van de Klundert, will report to Brett Henry, Vice President Commercial for Abacus, who has been covering the territory in an interim role over recent months.

 


 

NarayananThe media and communications consultancy Millward Brown appointed Narayanan Radhakrishnan as Chief Client Officer, South-East Asia (SEA).

In his new role, Narayanan reports to Nichola Rastrick, Managing Director of SEA, and joins the SEA management team. He takes over from Priti Mehra who has served as SEA Chief Client Officer for the last four years and recently moved to become Managing Director of Singapore.

Narayanan brings more than 20 years of experience across media and digital and has spent over a decade as a client leader on a number of leading FMCG businesses. Most recently, he was the Chief Operating Officer at Mediacom in China where he developed client contact strategies and built strong relationships with senior regional and global clients. Previously, as Vice President in Ogilvy, he developed integrated advertising strategies, including general market advertising, digital platforms, public relations, experiential/event marketing and in-store communications.

Narayanan has an MBA from T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal India.

FrankLuFileMaker, Inc. announced the promotion of Frank Lu to vice president of engineering, to lead the company’s engineering teams and set the direction for the company’s award-winning software development platform. He replaces Simon Thornhill, who retires at the end of next month.

Lu has served for the last eight years as senior director leading R&D for the FileMaker Platform, which includes FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go for iPad and iPhone, FileMaker Pro Advanced and FileMaker Server. In total, he has been with FileMaker for more than 14 years. He came to FileMaker from Siebel/Oracle, where he worked as technical manager and director of engineering for eight years on system structure to support high-performance and high-scalability CRM applications

Lu earned a master’s degree in computer science from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.

 


 

Globe Telecom’s Entertainment Gateway Group announces strategic partnership with Mobext Philippines.

Mobext was launched in 2007 as the mobile advertising network of Havas Digital (now Havas Media), and was brought to the Philippines in early 2012. Currently, it has more than 24 offices in key cities around the globe, making it the largest mobile marketing agency network in the world.

In a move to strengthen its mobile advertising presence in the Philippines, Globe Telecom’s Entertainment Gateway Group (EGG), the telco’s wholly-owned subsidiary, partnered with Mobext, the first pure-play mobile marketing agency in the Philippines offering specialized end-to-end mobile solutions to the country’s leading brands.

With a 300% growth in smartphone sales and high social media and SMS penetration during the previous year, EGG is at the forefront of helping local brands engage in mobile as a marketing channel for businesses and consumers alike.

With this partnership, EGG and Mobext will collaborate on joint encounter with brands, new product development and research as well as thought leadership and marketing events aimed at increasing the share of digital and mobile ad spend amongst brands and media agencies in the Philippines.

EGG was able to engage over 50 of the country’s leading brands on mobile advertising campaigns. Earlier this year, EGG has pioneered the country’s first-ever mobile advertising service that allows small and medium scale enterprises and established brands to reach their customers based on their real-time location using SMS and USSD messages to drive immediate footfall.

 


 

Bite adds integrated marketing specialist to team and deepens relationship with Brother International.

Fiona_StewartBite has been tasked with launching the Australian social communities for Brother International, following the success in developing a first-of-its-kind retail training app for the home and office product provider. This latest campaign will focus initially on building Brother’s presence across Facebook followed by the launch of an Instagram community – the company’s first globally, aimed at connecting with new lifestyle-focused audiences. Bite will be responsible for the overall content strategy, day-to-day management as well as supporting social advertising ensuring the social campaign is fully integrated into Brother’s overall marketing activity. To fully leverage this new activity, Bite will also develop an Influencer Engagement program, opening Brother to new audiences across social and digital platforms and providing new opportunities to integrate offline PR and launch events.

To support these growing digital and social campaigns, Bite has hired integrated marketing expert, Fiona Stewart, who will help support these campaigns, serving as Manager, Integrated Marketing. Fiona worked at Bite’s Glasgow office and brings with her a proven track in digital strategy and marketing. With experience in B2B, B2C and channel marketing as well as content and business development, Fiona will be lending her expertise to Bite clients including Brother, HTC, Plantronics, Senetas, and D-Link. Her appointment reflects Bite’s commitment to producing fully integrated campaigns – using strategy and content to build connections across PR, marketing, social and digital channels.

 


 

LynnYapYenLinGrey Group hired Lynn Yap Yen Lin as General Manager of Grey DPI, the shopper marketing arm of the network in Asia Pacific. In her new role, Lynn will be reporting to Adeline Lee, Group CEO of Grey DPI. She will be responsible for driving excellence in the shopper marketing discipline while building up shopper capabilities and expanding Grey DPI across the Asia-Pacific region.

With 13 years of experience working across multiple industries, design disciplines, geographies, market segments and retail channels, Lynn brings with her an exceptional global perspective with local context as well as shopper insights and market trends knowledge.

 

She has worked with some of the most well-known retailers and brands in commercial architecture, luxury furniture, prestige watches and beauty & grooming industries. She has also held numerous key management positions in several organizations in different countries including Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal and Swatch Group.

Lynn graduated with honours with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interior Architecture & Design from Nottingham Trent University. Currently, she is pursuing her Master of Business Administration programme from the University of Birmingham. A multilingual, she is fluent in English, Mandarin, Malay, Japanese, Cantonese and a few other Chinese dialects.