Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands announced today the appointment of Eden Engelken as Director of Infrastructure and Operations, Asia Pacific.

Based in Singapore, Eden will be responsible for managing Mediabrands’ technology infrastructure across global and local markets as well as ensuring technology delivery with rigor and governance across all project deliverables.

 He will provide leadership to a team of business intelligence and master data analysts that are creating customized, data-driven marketing solutions based on Mediabrands’ Marketing Intelligence Platform (MIP) that gives their clients seamless access to aggregated data through the use of a single easy-to-use dashboard interface accessible via the web.

Eden joins the Mediabrands team from BHP Billiton, where he served as Transition Program Manager and before that he worked for Hewlett Packard Australia as ITO Business Operations Manager, where he managed the integration of HP and EDS in Australia and New Zealand among other responsibilities.

Tom Ormes, Creative Director of iris’ Singapore operation, will relocate in June to take up the role at iris’ Amsterdam office. Ormes, who has been the creative force behind some of iris Singapore’s biggest campaigns and new business wins, including Johnnie Walker ‘Step Inside’, Tiger football, Sony Cybershot and Audi’s A8 and A1 campaigns, will take up the role working alongside iris Amsterdam’s managing director Chris Friend.

Ormes, who joined the agency in December 2008, has been leading iris Singapore’s creative team of 16. In the past two years, iris’ Singapore office has grown from 25 to 70 people, and earned itself a reputation as one of the most successful agencies in the region.

To replace Ormes, iris has promoted Subha Naidu to fill the position of Creative Director. Subha Naidu joined iris in 2008 as creative group head and has rapidly risen through the iris Singapore creative ranks. He has been the creative lead on a number of iris’ blue-chip clients, including Heineken and Sony.

Akamai Technologies, Inc. appointed David Rich as Vice President, Asia Pacific to lead its rapidly expanding regional team covering Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan.

David has over 30 years of experience in the high-tech and telecoms sector, previously holding senior management roles at Verizon Business, Global One and Cable & Wireless, where he gained an in-depth knowledge of the business and regulatory landscape across Asia Pacific.

Based out of Akamai's regional headquarters in Singapore, David will be responsible for driving the company's growth throughout the region, helping businesses to securely power rich media, enterprise applications and cloud services online.

Betty Lin formerly of Sun Microsystems HK, has also joined Akamai, and will serve as Country Manager for Hong Kong and Taiwan, reporting to David.

The Singapore Computer Society (SCS) announced the new line-up of its council members at the SCS Annual General Meeting on 30 March 2011.

Mr. Alphonsus Pang, the Director of DSTA’s Corporate Services, was re-appointed as the President of SCS to lead the largest infocomm professional body in Singapore.

Into his third term, Alphonsus is set to lead his new council to mark more milestones for the Society. SCS’ Council comprises leading senior directors and executives from the private and public sectors as well as from academia. Each council member is a well respected industry leader.

The office bearers for 2011/2012 are:

President Mr. Alphonsus Pang (Director, DSTA Corporate Services)
Vice President Mr. Howie Lau (Vice President, Lenovo Singapore)
Vice President Mr. Tan Teng Cheong (General Manager, Dell Singapore)
Vice President Ms. Tham Ai Chyn (Director, IT & Facilities Management, SIM)
Honorary Secretary Ms. Tham Ai Chyn (Director, IT & Facilities Management, SIM)
Honorary Treasurer Mr. Adrian Chye (General Manager, Mediafreaks)

Council Members

• Mr. Gavin Ang (Deputy Director, Institute for Infocomm Research)
• Dr. Timothy Chan (Director, School of Business, Singapore Polytechnic)
• Mr. Robert Chew (Chairman, ITSC)
• Mr. Lawrence Goh (Executive Partner, Accenture)
• Mr. Andrew Khaw (Senior Director, Industry Development Group, IDA)
• Mr. Philip Kwa (Consulting Director, Lodestone Management Consultants)
• Dr. Kwong Yuk Wah (Chief Information Officer, NTUC)
• Mr. Lai Poh Hing (Director, School of IT, Nanyang Polytechnic)
• Dr. Bernard Leong (Chief Technology Officer, Chalkboard)
• Mr. Leslie Ong (Managing Director, Oracle Corporation)
• Mr. Harish Pillay (Global Community & Technology Architect, Red Hat Asia)
• Mr. Yap Chee Yuen (Senior Vice President, Resorts World at Sentosa)

On connectivity, SCS now has more than 23,000 members, a 6% increase from 2009, and is the largest ICT Professional body in Singapore.

Polycom, a global leader in unified communications (UC), announced the acquisition of Accordent Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of video content management and delivery solutions, for approximately US$50 million in cash. The acquisition positions Polycom to become the leader in the Video Content Management and Delivery market by integrating Polycom’s leading open standards UC Intelligent Core™ and market leading UC endpoints with Accordent’s innovative open standards video content management solution. Accordent’s software-centric solution will become an integral element of the Polycom UC Intelligent Core and will be reported with Polycom’s Network Infrastructure revenues.

IBM announced new offerings designed to speed the delivery of Web and cloud, which are part of a multi-phase initiative that integrates IBM WebSphere technology with Akamai's application delivery network, accelerating traffic between the public cloud and the data center while improving application performance for users both inside and outside the enterprise.

IBM WebSphere Application Accelerator for Public Networks helps businesses deliver applications faster by reducing the time it takes for information to move from the data center across the Internet to users on the public Internet. The solution also helps protect and secure applications through a scalable network of tens of thousands of servers that can be instantly called upon to serve unexpected bursts of traffic or to protect against intentionally malicious attacks. WebSphere Application Accelerator for Public Networks is available now in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore, and will be rolled out in other countries over the course of the year.

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®), a top-ranked international institution for leadership education, announced the launch of its new training facilities in Singapore.

Singapore is CCL's first-ever Asian campus, which opened in February 2004 and has trained leaders from multinational organisations, regional companies and government agencies. The Singapore campus also contains a research unit, a collaborative effort with EDB, which focuses on conducting studies in the region for a better understanding of how leadership is approached here. The new campus is the first of several growth initiatives CCL has planned for Singapore in 2011, in a bid to better deliver its leadership programs to customers in the nation and from around the region.

Elsewhere in Asia, the Center has plans to set up new facilities in New Delhi, India and Shanghai, China.