AgaHavas Media Group announced the appointment of Aga Giedroyc as General Manager for Havas Media International in Asia Pacific. The new role sees Aga returning back to Havas Media International (formerly MPG International), where she spent three years between 2005 to 2008 based out of the London office.

Aga will work closely with the agency’s hubs in Singapore and Hong Kong to manage key international businesses that include Emirates, LG Electronics, Shangri-La Hotels, Accor and AXA Insurance.

Her mandate includes managing international teams with a focus on delivering integrated media planning and communications solutions through Meaningful Connections planning process. She will be also be responsible for driving the integration of digital and specialized services and leading business development from existing and new clients.

Aga will report directly to Jorge Irizar, Global CEO of Havas Media International and will have a dual reporting in Asia Pacific reporting in to Vishnu Mohan, CEO of Havas Media Group Asia Pacific and Christophe Cases, CEO of Havas Media Group, Greater China.

An accomplished media professional with more than ten years in media communications industry, Aga joins the agency with an expertise in managing regional and global clients, strategy counsel, integrated and multi-market media planning, buying & implementation, incorporating digital, network management and international operations.

Most recently, she was with OMD International, where she was responsible for managing the media business of ASICS and Cisco in the EMEA region.

Prior to this, she spent four years with UM International, where she serviced clients like Ernst & Young, Zurich Insurance, MasterCard, Bacardi Global Brands, Tiffany &Co and Exxon Mobile.

 


 

jayant1Audio Precision, the recognized standard in audio test, announced the appointment of Jayant Datta as Chief Technology Officer, with responsibilities that will focus on the organization's technology strategy, product platform evolution, and innovation efforts. In his role as CTO, Datta will collaborate closely with Tom Kite, Ph.D., VP of Engineering, and Bruce Hofer, Co-Founder and Chief Analog Engineer.

Datta, who most recently served as Assistant Vice President for Audio R&D at THX, Ltd., brings to AP two-plus decades of audio experience and a track record of developing and implementing audio technologies across a broad range of industries and applications.

In addition to his corporate career and various roles with Discrete Laboratories, Motorola, and Wheatstone, Datta has been an adjunct professor with Syracuse University's Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department since 1999.

Datta holds a bachelor's degree (Electrical Engineering) from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT, Bombay) and two master's degrees (Electrical & Computer Engineering; Music Engineering) from the University of Miami.

 


 

lwTableau, a global leader in rapid-fire business analytics software, announced that renowned statistician, academic, and author Leland Wilkinson has joined Tableau as its Vice President, Statistics. Wilkinson will contribute to Tableau's research and development efforts in the areas of scientific visualization, statistical graphics, and predictive analysis.

Wilkinson is an entrepreneur and pioneer in the data visualization field, writing the SYSTAT statistical package in the early 1980's and developing visualization systems in the decades following. Most recently, Wilkinson served as Vice President, Data Visualization at Skytree, Inc., a company developing machine learning technology. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Wilkinson holds an A.B. from Harvard University, an S.T.B. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University, and is author of the book The Grammar of Graphics. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, the International Statistical Institute, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Tableau recently launched a new website to highlight its research work in fields such as statistics, predictive analytics, design, visualization, and more, besides being committed to product innovation at a high rate. In 2014, Tableau invested $90 million, or almost 22% of its revenue, in R&D. The company also grew its R&D team by 50%.

 


 

On May 29th, Mr. William "Bill" Kish is leaving his position as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Ruckus Wireless, Inc. to pursue new interests, and has stepped down as a member of the Board of Directors. Kish plans to explore new technology areas after 11 years in wireless networking at Ruckus.

 


 

OWD-compliance-review-board wordmarkThe Open Web Device Compliance Review Board (CRB), in conjunction with its members ALCATEL ONE TOUCH, Deutsche Telekom, Mozilla, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Telefonica, has announced the first handsets to be certified by the CRB: The Alcatel ONETOUCH Fire C and the Alcatel ONETOUCH Fire E. ALCATEL ONETOUCH has also authorized a CRB lab.

The CRB is an independently operated organization designed to promote the success of the open Web device ecosystem by encouraging API compliance as well as ensuring competitive performance.

"As an initial founding member of the CRB, we are pleased to know that the Board has achieved one of its major objectives in certifying Firefox OS devices on a standard set of Web APIs and performance metrics," said Jason Bremner, Senior Vice President of Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.” "We expect other companies will also certify, improving their product development cycle time while ensuring a compelling user experience and compliance to standard Web APIs", he concluded.

The certification process involves OEMs applying to the CRB for their device to be certified. CRB's authorized labs test the device for open web APIs and key performance benchmarks. CRB's subject matter experts review the results and validate against CRB stipulated benchmarks with a reference device to ensure compatibility and performance across key use cases. The process is open to all device vendors whether they are a member of CRB or not. The CRB website www.openwebdevice.org will publish the process for applying for certification.

CRB certification testing is conducted by industry labs authorized by the CRB, with each submission expected to be completed within approximately three days. The CRB offers a platform for the rest of the industry to request certification. "In the last three years Mozilla has proven with Firefox OS, that open Web technology is a strong, viable platform for mobile," said Andreas Gal, Chief Technology Officer, Mozilla. "Certification by the CRB provides a launch pad for those who complete to prove that their device offers a consistent and excellent experience for users, reducing time and cost to qualify across operators and markets. Today's announcement paves the way for other device makers

 


 

EditShare®, the technology leader in intelligent shared storage and media management solutions, has named two industry executives in key leadership roles for the company’s Asia Pacific (APAC) operations.

The new appointments expand the company’s sales and marketing expertise and efforts for its growing shared storage and media asset management business.

Peter LambertPeter Lambert, Director of Sales, EditShare APAC:

The newly appointed director of sales for EditShare APAC, is responsible for the region’s overall sales strategy and performance with a key emphasis on the region’s expanding channel partner program. He joined the company in 2014 on his return from India where he spent three years introducing new technology into the Indian film industry. With more than 25 years of experience working with media and entertainment companies, Peter has acquired an in-depth understanding of customers’ requirements and the challenges they face. His hands-on approach and exceptional knowledge of emerging digital technologies have enabled him to help build some of the most influential broadcast and post-production software development companies. Previous roles include VP of sales and marketing at Bright Systems, chairman of Nucoda and country manager for Avid Technology UK.

Paul HayesPaul Hayes, Sales and Marketing Executive, EditShare APAC: Paul is a technically savvy industry professional who was instrumental in launching EditShare APAC. He is now responsible for executing the company’s business development strategy as EditShare’s newly appointed sales and marketing executive for APAC. Paul Hayes has been a figure in the APAC broadcast television and post-production industry for more than 25 years, the last 18 years being spent in sales and marketing of specialist broadcast and professional video production equipment. Paul is a regular at various world trade events and has given papers at conferences on collaborative storage and workflow techniques. His passion and experience in “real-world” processes and digital technology for the film and TV post market, along with his ability to deliver solutions for his customers’ exact needs, has made him a respected figure in the market.

Both appointments are effective immediately.

 


 

Tan Yong HinGrey Group Malaysia welcomes Tan Yong Hin as Chief Financial Officer.

Tan is a veteran with 20 years of experience in marketing communications, semiconductor, telecommunication and public accounting industries. He is also a member of the Malaysia Institute of Accountants and a fellow member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

His unique and diverse finance exposure includes strategic planning and implementation, establishing business partnerships, financial analysis and business modeling, as well as working capital optimization at local, regional and global operations level, amongst others.

Tan joins Grey from Lowe and Partners where he was actively involved in the formulation and implementation of the business turnaround plan, besides rebuilding the entire back-end support function of the company by identifying the right new talents and introducing business partnership concepts to the team. He has also successfully revamped the global forecast and budgetary process at Kulicke & Soffa and implemented the global performance enhancement plan, which resulted in over US$10M annual cost savings. Prior to that he served in agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather.

 


 

Singapore Press Holdings and content discovery platform Outbrain announced the details of a multi-year strategic partnership that will see the media company enhance its digital strategy by deploying the full suite of Outbrain’s Engage solutions, to deliver relevant content to audiences across its wide portfolio of digital publications.

The agreement will enable SPH and its properties, including AsiaOne, The Straits Times, The Business Times, The New Paper, Stomp and Lollipop, to fully leverage the Outbrain Engage platform by utilising tools that marry editorial decision-making with predictive analytics and algorithmically generated content recommendations. This solution will allow better engagement and monetization through Outbrain Engage, along with deep data integration through their Outbrain Visual Revenue platform.

Over the past years, SPH has been at the forefront of global digital publishing innovation, and this partnership is proof of their commitment to continue on this path. SPH joins other leading global publishers like ESPN, Time Inc and Le Monde, who have recently signed multi-year deals with Outbrain.

 


 

Jean-PhilippeNexGuard, a Civolution company and the leading provider of forensic watermarking technology and solutions for protecting media content against illicit redistribution, announced that it has strengthened its NexGuard management team through the appointment of PayTV industry expert Jean-Philippe Plantevin as Senior Vice-President Products and Solutions.

Prior to joining NexGuard, Jean-Philippe held senior management positions at DiviCom/Harmonic, Nagravision (a Kudelski company) and SagemCom. He has in-depth expertise of conditional access, consumer electronics devices and video compression technologies and brings valuable relationships with many of the leading PayTV service providers. Jean-Philippe will be based in NexGuard’s office in Rennes, France.

 


 

Havas Media Group re-organizes Asia Pacific operations, appoints Christophe Cases as CEO for Greater China

 

Havas Media Group announced the re-organization of its Asia Pacific operations with the formation of a separate Greater China cluster, which will report into its Global Executive Committee. The re-organization is part of the group’s strategy to increase focus on priority markets by turning them into strategic business units with direct supervision from the global team. The rest of the Asia Pacific region will continue to be overseen by the current management helmed by Vishnu Mohan.

The announcement also includes the appointment of Christophe Cases as CEO for Greater China.

Christophe Cases1In his new role, Christophe will oversee the group’s operations in Greater China and will be responsible for growing the business across the three markets of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Christophe will focus on accelerating the expansion of the Havas Media Group’s services and the adoption of the agency’s collaborative “Havas Village” model that unifies creative, media, and other specialist services to enable clients to capitalize on the meaningful connections and agility created by integrated communications strategies.

Based out of Shanghai, Christophe will report to the Group Executive Committee and Havas Media Group’s Global Managing Director Dominique Delport.

Prior to joining Havas, Christophe spent more than two decades in management consulting with top consulting companies including Accenture, Capgemini and Ernst & Young, and worked around the world with leading global brands as an acknowledged expert in customer and growth strategy, new product/service launch, market expansion, and building high performing customer-centric organizations.

Most recently, Christophe was Managing Director with Accenture in Greater China where he was leading the Accenture Strategy practice looking after Consumer Goods, Retail, and Pharmaceutical clients and focused in particular on digital, marketing analytics, and eCommerce. Prior to relocating to Shanghai, Christophe had been working with Accenture since 2006 in the U.S., as leader in the Operations Strategy practice.

Previously, Christophe worked 7 years with Capgemini (formerly Ernst & Young Management Consulting) in its Strategy and Transformation practice as leader of its Consumer Growth and Experience Management practice in North America.

During the earlier part of his career, Christophe worked with Ernst & Young where he joined a core team in charge of launching a new practice delivering strategic advisory services to high-growth and start-up companies.

Commenting on the appointment, Dominique Delport, Global Managing Director of Havas Media Group said: “Christophe has an incredible track record of success as a management consultant working with some of the top consulting companies around the world. He also has a deep understanding of the complex and exciting market in China. I have experienced firsthand Christophe's intelligence, fresh strategic vision and enormous capacity to innovate. His ability to thrive during intense periods of growth and activity will be invaluable as we take our operations in China to the next level.”

On his appointment, Christophe said: “I am very excited to be joining Havas Media Group at this exciting stage of its global evolution. There is an established momentum within the group. Its integrated proposition combining creative, media, data, content, and range of digital specialties is getting a lot of attention from stakeholders in the industry. I look forward to leveraging this energy and the group’s vision to accelerate its growth and expansion in one of the world’s largest and most exciting economies.”

Havas Media Group’s portfolio of clients in the Greater China region includes leading brands such as LG, Emirates, AXA-TianPing, Hermes, Abbott, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, PUIG, and Shangri-La.