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AnnouncementsLAB360Independent consultancies RICE and AKIN have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch a new business unit LAB360, to help organizations design, integrate and innovate marketing and communications for business growth across Asia.

LAB360 aims to help brands tell multifaceted stories and engage their audiences with personalized precision. Through a consultancy approach that emphasizes co-creation with clients, LAB360 specializes in three pillars of capabilities—Insights, Brand, and Future.

  • Insights: Deriving clarity on addressable opportunities and gaps by deep diving into audience behavior, competitive landscape, channel effectiveness and attribution, among others.

  • Brand: Enhancing credibility and deepening engagement with communities of advocates through content that is delivered across different channels. This marries AKIN’s Human Brand Methodology with RICE’s expertise in reputation management through strategic media and influencer engagement, and industry relations.

  • Future: Helping businesses future-proof their offerings by consulting on digital-led business models and customized marketing strategies. A big focus is on designing MarTech infrastructure for automation and integration across platforms, to improve revenue acquisition.

AnnouncementsAdobeBoardAs industries shift to adapt to the new rules of the digital economy, Adobe has appointed its first International Advisory Board to further help customers navigate disruption and set digital transformation strategies to excel in the new era in customer experience.

Adobe’s International Advisory Board brings together six internationally focused leaders with track records of leading industries through disruption and transformation across B2B, B2C and government:

1. Barbara Kux is a multiple Board Director with longstanding international board and executive experience in consumer goods and industrial companies, who started her career as a Management Consultant for McKinsey. She is a Member of the Supervisory Board at Henkel and Grosvenor Group as well as Vice-chair of the Board at Firmenich, a leading fragrance and flavor company. From 2008 until 2013, Ms. Kux was a Member of the Managing Board of Siemens, being the first woman to do so in the 160-year history of the company.  She has a strong history of leading Sustainability and Corporate Governance and was a Member of the Managing Board at Siemens where it was named ‘world's most sustainable industrial company’ in 2012.

2. Baudouin Prot has more than 40 years’ experience in global banking and was the former CEO and Chairman of the Board at BNP Paribas.  He is a Board member of French luxury group Kering, leading Fintech software provider Finastra and Alstom, a multinational rail mobility company.  He is also currently Senior Advisor to Boston Consulting Group.

3. Dr. Dieter Zetsche is Chairman of TUI AG and has been a member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG since December 1998 and was Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG from 2006 to 2019. During this time, he was also Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars.  He has held leadership positions at Daimler in Brazil and Argentina and was President of Freightliner Corporation, Head of Commercial Vehicles and CEO of the Chrysler Group.

4. Professor Heizo Takenaka is a world-renowned economist. He joined Prime Minister Koizumi’s Government in 2001, serving through to 2006. During this time, Dr Takenaka became Minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy, followed by Minister of Financial Services. He also served as Minister of the Postal Services’ Privatization and Minister of Internal Affairs and Communication. Dr Takenaka was named a member of the Economic Strategy Board in 1998 and the IT Strategy Board in 2000. He is currently a professor at Keio University. Dr Takenaka also holds several advisory board and committee roles, including Director of the Global Security Research Institute and Chairman of Pasona Group, Inc.

5. Nigel Hinshelwood is the former Head of HSBC UK and Deputy CEO of HSBC Bank plc.  He held several executive appointments within the HSBC Group including Head of HSBC Insurance Holdings, COO of EMEA and Global Head of Operations. He is currently Senior Independent Director of Lloyds Bank Plc and Bank of Scotland Plc, Non-Executive Director of Nordea Bank and Chairman of its Risk Committee.  He is also a member of Lloyd’s of London Technology and Transformation Committee.

6. Patrick Allaway is Chairman of the Bank of Queensland and a Non-Executive Director of Dexus Funds Management Ltd and Allianz Australia. He has extensive experience in corporate advisory roles and has also held Executive and Non-Executive roles for Citibank, Swiss Bank Corporation (now UBS) and Nine Entertainment.  He is the former Executive Chairman of Saltbush Capital Markets.
 

International Advisory Board members have been selected based on their exceptional leadership experience across industries including finance, retail, automotive, hospitality, consumer goods, media and entertainment, energy and healthcare and have led some of the world’s largest organizations through significant periods of change. The Advisory Board will be chaired by Paul Robson, President of Adobe’s International business.


AnnouncementsLexisNexisLexisNexis® Risk Solutions won for Best Cybersecurity Solution at the sixth Asian Private Banker Technology Awards.

The award recognized the LexisNexis® ThreatMetrix® product, a digital identity intelligence and authentication solution that enables better informed risk decisions, and LexisNexis® Emailage®, a powerful fraud risk scoring solution that balances a seamless user experience with robust fraud detection and prevention capabilities.

LexisNexis® ThreatMetrix® establishes a true digital identity by uniting digital and physical attributes to help businesses confidently differentiate between a trusted customer and a cyber threat in milliseconds, while LexisNexis® Emailage® uses email intelligence as a core risk identifier for fraud detection. These solutions allow customers to apply the appropriate level of security-related friction for every interaction across the customer lifecycle to prevent fraud before it happens.

This is the second year in a row that Asian Private Banker recognized the company for the category award.


AppointmentsAnyMindUUUMAnyMind Group announced a strategic partnership with one of the largest multi-channel networks (MCN) in Japan and a leader in creator management and content marketing, UUUM. Their goal is rebuilding the creator and influencer industry in Japan through a mutual utilization of the resources from UUUM and AnyMind Group’s technology and data for influencer marketing and direct-to-consumer (D2C) offerings.

The first step of this partnership looks to create the largest influencer network in Japan for marketers, with a launch date set for the second quarter of this year. This network will enable marketers and agencies in Japan to tap on the largest-combined pool of content creators available, combining UUUM’s creators, expertise and reach with AnyMind Group’s proprietary software, along with creators from AnyMind Group-owned GROVE.

Additionally, UUUM will look to launch influencer D2C brands by tapping on AnyMind Group’s tools including AnyFactory (for cloud manufacturing) and AnyShop (for e-commerce), with further details to be announced later this year.


AnnouncementsAPACEffieAPAC Effie Awards 2021 names Michelle Hutton and Shubhranshu Singh as Heads of Jury for the APAC Effie Awards 2021. They will lead and moderate the judging sessions to assess and honour the best-in-class marketing communications efforts in the region. The APAC Effie Awards is one of the industry’s most distinguished accolades for marketing effectiveness. Globally recognised by agencies and clients alike as the gold standard, it continues to lead, inspire and champion the practice and practitioners of marketing effectiveness.

Michelle Hutton is the Vice Chair of Edelman Asia Pacific and CEO of Edelman Australia, an agency that continues to innovate and disrupt how marketers use creative to earn attention and impact. As a 25-year industry veteran, she has built a reputation for inspiring clients to build brand trust to drive growth. She has led award winning teams and over the years she has worked with clients including Samsung, GSK, PayPal, Unilever and Kellogg.

Based in Australia since 2019, Michelle previously held global leadership positions for Edelman while based in London as Managing Director, Global Client Strategy, COO of Europe and Chair of the agency's global brand business. Besides the Effies, Michelle has also served on other global creative and effectiveness juries and PR award shows in Asia, EMEA and Australia, notably as PR Jury President at the 2019 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Michelle is an active member of Edelman’s Global Women in Leadership program, was a founding Board Member of the Global Women in PR network and was previously a Board Director of The Communications Council in Australia serving on its Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is also an active member of the International Women’s Forum and is an Advisory Board Member for Second Bite, one of Australia’s largest food rescue charities.

Shubhranshu Singh is the Global Head – Brand and Marketing at Royal Enfield. A thought leader and growth catalyst, he has two decades of global brand and category building experience on some of the most admired brands in the world, having held leadership positions in global corporations such as Unilever, Visa, Star-21 Century Fox earlier in his career.

Shubhranshu has been instrumental in encouraging path-breaking work, creating much loved IPs, and inspiring large teams to go beyond. He also has the proven, rare ability to marry the worlds of cultural mainstream, storytelling, and technology rather effectively.

Based in India, Shubhranshu is a prolific writer and writes a column for several publications particularly on brand building, consumer sociology, technology, and trends.


AnnouncementsGlobalizationZeetoGlobalization Partners, which enables companies to hire anyone, anywhere, quickly, and easily, via its AI-driven, automated and fully compliant global Employer of Record (EOR) platform announced that Zeeto, a leading marketing data discovery company, is utilizing its solution to hire hard to find talent around the world.


Zeeto’s team transitioned to remote working as a result of the pandemic and quickly realized the benefits. The new way of working uncovered the opportunity for the company to expand their search for hard-to-find talent from within a close radius of the company’s headquarters to anywhere in the world.

After hiring professionals in Mexico and Ukraine, Zeeto began looking to other countries, such as Poland and Ireland to find top talent. They are now very confident in the benefits of combining remote work and an international talent search. Not only has the transition to remote work been smooth, but it has accelerated the overall growth of the company.

As an EOR, Globalization Partners allows companies to hire anywhere in the world by serving as the legal employer, handling payroll, taxes, and benefits. Globalization Partners also ensure compliance with local employment laws and regulations, freeing up companies to manage and direct the daily work of their team members.

To see a demonstration of the technology, please watch this video.


AppointmentsBrayLeinoSplashBray Leino Splash (formerly Splash Interactive Group) announced a number of new appointments to their Singapore office.

Joining the Bray Leino Splash (BLS) team in the Singapore office are:

Jaffry Jalal as UX Director: he has been the former UX Design Lead at TBWA\Singapore, Havas and most recently a lecturer at Singapore Polytechnic, Jaffry has joined BLS Singapore to lead the UX and UI capability. As a veteran UX practitioner, he’s had the privilege of building digital products and creating immersive experiences for brands such as Singapore Airlines, MasterCard, and Michelin.

E Kien Wai as Technical Project Director: he formerly held various roles at R/GA, TSLA and most recently the technology company Deltatre. He is a seasoned digital advertising specialist with expertise in technology and product management and has over 15 years of experience delivering multiple successful strategic programs for global and regional clients such as Mediacorp, EDB, Luzerne, and Telenor.

Stephanie Holzhuber as Snr. Account Director: she was most recently Digital Marketing Director at Cheil Worldwide, focusing on data and e-commerce strategy for Samsung. Prior to this, Stephanie was with Digitas, where she led a range of international and local client businesses including United Overseas Bank, Novartis, and Singapore’s Health Promotion Board.

Jamie Phua as Account Director: she has worked at various Singapore agencies including Y&R, TBWA and Digitas along with a stint in China at BDO and Leo Burnett. Her strong capability in understanding data and consumer behaviours have allowed her to develop user-centric marketing strategy and campaigns for HSBC, Aptamil, Cigna, Google and Shiseido.

Bray Leino Spash was recently appointed by Mitsubishi Electric and Earth Observatory Singapore to undertake UX, creative and technical implementation on their digital platforms. They have also recently completed digital projects for NTUC Income, Bacha Coffee, and Epic Gas.