Winston PhuaPhilips has appointed Winston Phua as Head of Brand, Communications & Digital (BCD) for ASEAN and Pacific.

Based in Singapore, Winston is responsible for brand positioning, communications and digital marketing, for all of Philips’ businesses – including Health Systems, Personal Health and Lighting Solutions – across 10 countries around the region.

He was most recently Vice President and Head of Marketing for Philips Consumer Lifestyle in Greater China, based in Shanghai, where he was responsible for marketing and digital strategy. He also led the Domestic Appliances and Coffee lines of businesses in Greater China.

Winston brings with him over 18 years of experience in the industry, including more than 10 years helming global, regional, and country marketing roles across different Philips business sectors. Prior to joining Philips, he held Asia Pacific marketing positions at Procter & Gamble, Apple, and MTV based in various cities, including Bangkok and Hong Kong.

In his new role, Winston has now relocated from China to be back home in Singapore.

 


 

Hirata YawaraAtos Information Technology appoints Hirata Yawara as Managing Director of Atos operations in Japan.

Hirata has spent a quarter of a decade in the Financial Services sector holding Senior Executive roles at Mass Mutual Life and Skandia Life in Japan. In this new role, He is charged to lead a new chapter for Atos in Japan as he builds momentum to drive the business and deliver Tokyo 2020.

Hirata graduated from Gulf Coast Community College in Florida, USA in Associate Data Processing. He is married with 3 children, enjoys Golf and is a Kendo enthusiast.

 


 

Gimbals-Kevin-HunterinMarket, the world's largest beacon proximity and location intelligence platform, announces the hiring of mobile visionary Kevin Hunter as President, effective immediately. In this role, he'll lead multiple departments including strategic partnerships, business development, and product.

Kevin joins inMarket after successfully co-founding Gimbal as Chief Operating Officer, where his responsibilities included leading strategy and product vision, while overseeing day-to-day operations and building a world-class team. He oversaw the development of partnerships across multiple categories, from major sporting events and music to out-of-home advertising. Kevin grew the platform from its incubation stage in Qualcomm Labs through the spin off into a private entity in 2014. He first joined Qualcomm in 2006.

Prior to joining Gimbal, he commercialized some of the very first data services and mobile websites while at Sprint, including the Emmy award-winning Sprint TV. He completed his undergraduate at the University of Kansas and is the co-inventor of 20 U.S. patents.

 


 

RapidMinerThe open source predictive analytics platform, RapidMiner, announced Tom Wentworth as Chief Marketing Officer.

Wentworth is responsible for global go-to-market strategy, demand generation, product marketing and corporate communications. He joins RapidMiner from Acquia, where he was Chief Marketing Officer leading the company through a period of rapid growth.

 


 

Onvia announced the appointment of Steve Ritchie to the company's executive management team as Senior Vice President of Sales.

Ritchie brings over 15 years of experience leading sales, marketing and business development teams. In his role, he will lead Onvia's Sales and Client Success departments in expanding Onvia's market share among government contractors selling into the vast and fragmented state and local government market.

Prior to joining Onvia, Ritchie served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at CMD Group, LLC. (formerly Reed Construction Data). He has also served in leadership roles at Davis Brand Capital, ChoicePoint Inc., Diamond Management and Technology Consultants and Bain & Company.

 


 

Content marketing firm Brafton Inc. is proud to announce Meredith Farley as its newly appointed Vice President of Product. Meredith has been pivotal in the development and expansion of Brafton's offerings over the past six years.

As VP of Product, she is responsible for overseeing and developing Brafton's product line, working closely with department heads across the business, clients, prospects and vendors to pilot and launch new offerings. She aims to ensure Brafton is creating product-based solutions that are smart, consistent and ahead of the marketplace and client need.

One of Meredith's first priorities is to address current customers' challenges with marketing technology. Marketing technology is not a competitive advantage anymore – it's a ticket to entry. More than 60 percent of marketers plan to increase tech budgets in the next two years.

 


 

Pete-ChildsWorkfront, a leading provider of cloud-based Enterprise Work Management solutions, announced that Pete Childs joined the company as its new Chief Financial Officer and a member of the executive leadership team.

As Workfront's Chief Financial Officer, Childs will be responsible for the overall financial strategy and direction of Workfront, as well as the finance, accounting, planning, and legal teams.

Childs brings over 20 years of experience working in finance leadership, including the successful completion of two IPOs. Prior to Workfront, Childs was the Chief Financial Officer at Cvent, a leading cloud-based enterprise event management platform. During his tenure at Cvent, Childs completed a $1 billion IPO and a successful follow-on less than six months later. He also contributed to the company's high growth, and profitability with a 30+% CAGR, resulting in a doubling of revenue while maintaining positive margins during his tenure. Childs also held leadership positions at HCR ManorCare and Towers Watson, where he also participated in the company's IPO.

Childs replaces former Workfront CFO Michael Olsen, who left the company earlier this year for personal reasons. He joins Workfront at an exciting time as the company just announced $33 million in funding and the acquisition of online review and approval leader ProofHQ, both of which add to Workfront's growing opportunity.

 


 

Fusionex, a multi-award winning, London Stock Exchange AIM-listed software provider specializing in Analytics, Business Intelligence, Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT), today it will partner with Dell to provide customers in the Asian region with industry-leading, easy-to-deploy Big Data Analytics solutions.

The collaboration brings together the combined expertise of both organizations to offer enterprises a powerful, scalable and efficient big data analytics platform that integrates Fusionex's advanced Big Data Analytics software (GIANT) with Dell's enterprise stack of infrastructure offerings. The solution will enable companies of all sizes to kick-start their big data initiatives with ease and flexibility, as well as to deploy analytics in any environment, be it on premise, on the cloud, or via a hybrid approach.

Fusionex and Dell have also successfully collaborated on an IoT (Internet of Things) initiative for Intel's manufacturing facility, where a joint solution enabled Intel to cut costs, achieve higher production yields, and introduce smart maintenance via Big Data Analytics to Intel's manufacturing processes.

 


 

SpeedCast International Limited, a leading global satellite telecommunications service provider, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ST Teleport, a leading satellite communications services provider based in Singapore.

The acquisition includes ST Teleport’s world class teleport facilities and data centre infrastructure in Singapore, a major hub in Asia for global maritime and oil & gas customers. The acquisition enables SpeedCast to remain, more than ever, the partner of choice for satellite communications in Asia-Pacific and further strengthens the Company’s position in both the maritime and energy sectors.

With this new acquisition, SpeedCast significantly strengthens its presence in Singapore to serve its growing customer base there. It also extends SpeedCast’s global network with a state-of-the-art facility and infrastructure in a strategic location in Asia. The infrastructure further complements the teleports acquired by SpeedCast earlier this year in Australia through the NewSat acquisition.

SpeedCast’s customers will benefit from being able to land their traffic in Singapore, co-locate equipment there, leverage a stock of spare parts, and take advantage of an offshore certified engineering team, as well as a 24/7 customer support center. The associated lab will also allow customers to test applications and do live proofs of concept on site.

The acquisition of ST Teleport is subject to regulatory approval. This is the fifth acquisition announced by SpeedCast in 2015.

 


 

ChandranNational Instruments (NI), the provider of solutions that enable engineers and scientists to solve the world's greatest engineering challenges, announced the appointment of Mr Chandran Nair as Vice President for Asia Pacific.

Previously the Managing Director for ASEAN, Mr Nair has been instrumental in establishing NI's footprint in Southeast Asia and consistently delivering double digit growth. In his new role, Mr Nair will be responsible for growing NI's business in mainland China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Oceania and Taiwan.

Mr Nair began his NI career in 1997 and went on to lead the successful initiative for a new PXI instrumentation standard that is the industry-standard platform today. In 2003, Mr Nair became the Managing Director for Southeast Asia where NI grew its market share exponentially and successfully forayed into emerging markets like Myanmar.

mkrajncOn the heels of Nair's appointment, NI also named Mr Matej Krajnc as the new Managing Director for ASEAN and ANZ. With over 30 years of engineering industry experience, Mr Krajnc will be responsible for the growth of NI's presence, visibility, sales, and application engineering throughout Australia , New Zealand , and Southeast Asia.

NI has a long-term track record of growth in Asia and globally. It is one of Top 25 Best Multinational Workplaces ranked by Great Places to Work Institute for four years, and has been one of FORTUNE 100 best places to work, for 15 consecutive years.

 


 

Effie Worldwide and the World Economic Forum announce the addition of an Asia Pacific (APAC) category to the 2016 Positive Change Effie Awards competition.

The Positive Change Effie Awards recognizes and celebrates the most effective marketing programs that have measurably shifted audience behavior toward more environmentally sustainable choices, and/or grown demand for more sustainable products and services by incorporating sustainability as a part of their marketing communications.

The APAC category will be run by Effie Worldwide’s regional partners, the Confederation of Asian Advertising Agency Associations (C4As) and Tenasia Group. The C4As and Tenasia Group currently run the highly-regarded APAC Effie Awards, and will add the Positive Change award to their roster this year.

The idea for Positive Change Effie emerged from the Engaging Tomorrow’s Consumer project at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos in 2013. All Positive Change Effie finalists and winners will receive points in the Effie Effectiveness Index – the most comprehensive global ranking of marketing effectiveness, based on analysis of data from all Effie Awards competitions worldwide.

Efforts that ran in Asia Pacific, Europe or North America between August 1, 2014 and October 31, 2015 are eligible to enter the 2016 competition. Entry deadlines run from December 15, 2015 – January 28, 2016. Visit effie.org/positive-change for full details.

 


 

The Financial Times announces two senior editorial appointments. David Pilling is named Africa editor, retaining his role as associate editor. Beijing bureau chief Jamil Anderlini replaces Pilling as Asia editor. He is also promoted to assistant editor.

David PillingDavid Pilling joined the FT in 1990 from the Africa Economic Digest, serving first in London as a sub-editor and later as a correspondent in Santiago and Buenos Aires. Prior to his appointment as Asia editor in 2008, Pilling was the FT’s Tokyo bureau chief for six years. He has been awarded a variety of reporting prizes, most recently for coverage of Japan and China, both individually and as part of FT teams. In both 2011 and 2012, he was named Best Commentator by SOPA for his columns on China, Japan, India and Pakistan, and was also named Best Foreign Commentator for 2011 in the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards for coverage of China, Japan and Pakistan.

JamilAnderliniJamil Anderlini has served as Beijing bureau chief since 2011. Prior to joining the FT, he was Beijing business correspondent for the South China Morning Post and chief editor for China Economic Review. He has been based in China since 2000. Anderlini has won numerous awards, including a UK Foreign Press Association Award in 2008, several individual SOPA awards and the inaugural Jones-Mauthner Award in 2012. In 2013, Anderlini was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and short-listed for Foreign Reporter of the Year at The Press Awards in the UK.

These moves come as the FT makes wide-ranging efforts to add depth and breadth to its global newsrooms. These included a series of major hires and moves at its U.S. bureaus. Pilling and Anderlini will take up their new positions from January 2016 in London and Hong Kong respectively.

 


 

Geometry GlobalGeometry Global have announced the appointment of Usuk Li and Jihoon Park as joint Creative Directors at Geometry Global Korea, effective immediately. Working together, Usuk and Jihoon will report to Will MacKenzie, CEO, Geometry Global Korea.

A 10-year veteran of Geometry Global and G2, Usuk Li worked as Art Director before his promotion to Creative Director. In his new role, Usuk will undertake creative leadership for key clients, including BATK, Diageo and Dearim. With more than 13 years’ experience in advertising, he has unparalleled knowledge of the industry and Korean culture. He has achieved noted success in shopper marketing and has a proven track record leading client accounts across a range of sectors within FMCG, IT, Pharmaceutical, and F&B. Usul’s clients include Heineken, P&G and IBM, among other key brands.

Jihoon Park moves from Cheil where he was Associate Creative Director/Senior Art Director leading the training and development of the creative team. He brings with him 12 years’ experience in the international and Korean advertising market, working with major brands including Samsung for nine years. In 2006, Jihoon became the first Korean creative in history to win the Grandprix at the Adfest International Advertising Awards.

Geometry Global is a WPP company and award-winning, multi-practice marketing agency that influences people's buying behavior with transformative creative solutions informed by rich data and sharp insights. Using cutting edge insight tools to map and analyze people's Purchase Decision Journeys, the agency develops brand engagement programs that drive conversion and measurably impact client business.

 


 

LinkedIn has announced the appointment of Olivier Legrand as its managing director for the Asia Pacific region, effective Jan 1, 2016.

With this new appointment, he will have a dual role, continuing to serve as head of Marketing Solutions for LinkedIn in the region, the company said in a statement.

He succeeds Hari Krishnan, who held the post since January 2013 and who is leaving to join PropertyGuru Group as its president and chief business officer.

Singapore-based Legrand, who joined LinkedIn in 2012 to drive the Marketing Solutions business in Asia Pacific, is a senior executive with more than a decade of leadership, marketing and business development experience in the region, the company said. Before joining LinkedIn, he was general manager of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network for Asia.

LinkedIn said that Asia Pacific, home to some 40% of the world’s professionals, is a key growth region for the company.

 


 

David-SmithDavid Smith has joined Bloomberg Media Group as Director of Media Sales for North Asia.

Based in Hong Kong, David will lead Bloomberg Media's sales strategy and initiatives across the group's portfolio including the recently launched Asia edition of Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Pursuits, Bloomberg Markets, Bloomberg Live, Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg mobile.

David brings with him over 14 years of experience in media and advertising, most notably as regional director of integrated media solutions at The Economist Group. Over his 10 years at The Economist, David managed an integrated product portfolio across 10 markets in Asia and held several senior roles in sales, advertising and sponsorship. Prior to joining The Economist Group, David led Time Magazine's regional advertising sales, covering Hong Kong, Macau and Korea.

 


 

Nina-HargusEMC Corporation announced the appointment of Nina Hargus as Chief Marketing Officer of EMC Information Infrastructure, effective immediately.

She will be responsible for the global structure, strategy, and execution of all aspects of EMC Information Infrastructure's marketing efforts, reporting to Jeremy Burton, who has been serving as interim CMO since June 2015 and will continue in his role as President of Products and Marketing of EMC Information Infrastructure.

Nina has held the position of CMO at VCE for the last three years and will continue to play an integral role in VCE, a subsidiary of EMC Corporation that manufactures converged infrastructure appliances for enterprise environments.

As CMO of VCE, she took the lead in defining a new market and establishing VCE as the de facto leader of the new converged infrastructure marketplace. Nina shepherded VCE marketing through an era of hyper-growth where VCE became the industry standard in converged infrastructure.

Previously, she led the EMC Global Services Marketing organization where she was responsible for driving activity for the company's $4.5 billion services arm. In this role, she led the marketing integration and branding of five Global Services acquisitions, and helped shift the portfolio toward strategic services to spearhead EMC's transformational agenda. Before that, she held senior management positions in EMC's Global Alliances and Channel Marketing organizations, in addition to holding a variety of roles in Engineering and product line management.

Nina is a graduate of Wellesley College and attended the MIT Sloan Executive Education program. She will be based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

 


 

George-WongVeritas Technologies LLC, a global leader in information management solutions, announced the appointment of George Wong as the new Channel Leader for the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region.

In this role, he is responsible for conceptualizing and leading the APJ channel strategy that will spur Veritas to increase its customer reach and market scale across the region. He will also be focused on developing and nurturing an ecosystem of trusted partners to build capabilities in delivering innovative solutions that covers all platforms from backup and recovery, business continuity, software-defined storage and information governance, to customers while driving profitable growth.

With over 25 years' experience in the technology industry, Wong is an industry veteran who has held senior regional channel management positions for global technology enterprises including Oracle, BEA Systems, BroadVision and Digital Equipment.

Prior to joining Veritas, Wong was the Group Vice President for Oracle where he was responsible for the business development and partnership functions. He was also the former ASEAN Managing Director of BEA Systems before Oracle's acquisition of BEA.

 


 

Dan Molloy joins Bloomberg Media Group as Commercial Director for Asia Pacific.

Based in Hong Kong, Dan will lead Bloomberg Media Group's strategic partnerships, distribution and marketing across all platforms, including web, mobile, television, digital video, radio, print magazines and live events in Asia.

Dan joins Bloomberg Media with over 17 years of experience in media and advertising, most recently as General Manager at Kaplan Hong Kong where he led its commercial operations, business development, marketing and customer acquisition.

Prior to this, he was Global Executive Director at Dow Jones Multi-Media Asia Pacific, where he oversaw advertising and sponsorship strategies for the Wall Street Journal’s franchise of products and Dow Jones' media properties worldwide.

Dan also spent 10 years in Tokyo with Financial Times Limited in various senior management, commercial and advertising roles.

 


 

Hipstreet, a company specializing in Consumer Electronics and accessories, announced that Alan Blundell and Matt Skynner have joined the company, reporting to the President and CEO, Moe Kirpalani.

Alan Blundell has been named Senior Vice President, Business Development & Sales, leading the sales team with a focus on executing against a clear strategic framework to drive growth. He joins the company from Wal-Mart Canada where he most recently served as Vice President, Merchandise Operations, Space Planning. In his 22 year career at Wal-Mart, Blundell has held various progressive leadership roles in merchandising including General Merchandise Manager, Entertainment and Electronics. Alan studied English & Film at York University and completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard.

Matt Skynner has been named Senior Vice President and General Manager and will lead marketing, product management and development as well as operations. He joins the Company from AMD (previously ATI), where he spent 17 years in various roles including Vice President, Corporate Marketing, Vice President, Product Marketing and Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Graphics Business Unit. In addition, Skynner served as the General Manager for AMD Canada. For the last 2 years Skynner was on the Board of Directors of the IT Association of Canada. Skynner holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and an MBA from the University of Manitoba. Blundell and Skynner will both be based in Markham, Ontario.

 


 

The Board of Directors of CSA Group announced the appointment of David Weinstein as the organization's new President and Chief Executive Officer, effective November 11, 2015.

CSA Group is a leading standards development organization and a global provider of testing and certification services to national and global standards.

David Weinstein joins CSA Group with a 30-year track record as an accomplished global business strategist. As President and CEO, he will be responsible for the leadership and direction of the global company, which employs more than 1,800 people serving approximately 35,000 customers across a portfolio of standards development and solutions, training and advisory services, and testing and certification in North America, Europe and Asia.

Most recently, Mr. Weinstein was CEO of ABS Group, where he was responsible for leading the firm's growth and success. ABS Group is a 2,400-person membership-based technical services firm with operations in over 30 countries that provides consulting, inspection, and certification services to oil and gas, power, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and government clients — enabling them to operate safely, reliably, efficiently, and in compliance with regulations and standards. Prior to ABS Group, he was a partner in several management consulting firms, including Accenture and Oliver Wyman — assisting commercial, non-profit, and government agency clients with a range of growth and performance improvement challenges. Over the years his clients have included organizations engaged in standards development, providers of testing and certification services, and a significant number of Canadian companies and Crown corporations.

David Weinstein holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a dual concentration in Finance and Multi-National Management. He also has Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 


 

2015 Global Competitiveness Top 10 Brands from China Announced by IDG

The awarding ceremony of the internationally authoritative competition 2015 Global Competitiveness Brands Top 10 from China was held in San Francesco on November 6, 2015. Leading companies well known for their global competitiveness and sustainable growth received trophies on the ceremony. They are SinoPec, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China Life Insurance, China Mobile, Huawei, China Electronics Corporation, ZTE, Tencent and Alibaba.

The three single prizes -- the Most Sustainably Competitive Brand, the Most Popular Brand with Core Competence, and the Brand with the Most Innovative Competence -- respectively went to SinoPec, Great Wall Technology and China Life Insurance, showcasing the competitiveness of Chinese companies.

A new structure of the world coupled with the rise of disruptive technologies has substantially changed the global landscape of branding power, unanimously agreed the judge panel of the 2015 competition. While China in this process has become a must-win market for the titanic multinational companies, the global influence and competitiveness of Chinese brands have also been largely bolstered.

In the context that new information technologies like the mobile Internet and cloud computing are driving companies around the world to evolve to a new business model characterized by "market + the Internet + ecosystem," Senior Chinese Leadership put forward the idea "Internet Plus" at the National People's Congress in March 2015. This gave the booming Chinese brands a new impetus in exploiting the potentials of technology breakthroughs, product innovation, and communication and marketing.

The winners of the 2015 Global Competitiveness Brands Top 10 from China are those who kept sharpening the global competitive edge of their brands through developing new strategic thinking and offering excellent products, technology and services. They successfully captured business opportunities by upgrading the brand value and prepared themselves for future growth as both the pioneers and the locomotives in the "Internet Plus" age.

Global Competitiveness Brands Top 10 from China, organized by IDG, has been successfully held for six years. Continuingly unfolding China's branding power to the rest of the world, this year's competition under the theme "Shaping the New Landscape of Internet Plus Brand" incorporates the new growth potentials enabled by future-oriented marketing competency of a brand as an important assessment criterion, to look into the new growth points of brands in the age of "Internet Plus." In parallel with the awarding ceremony, the organizer held an Executive Leadership Training at University of California, Berkeley. The training helped the Chinese companies to develop a new strategic mindset in the Internet Plus Age, enhanced the overall capabilities of Chinese brands on their road to globalization in terms of sustainable competitiveness and sustaining development and strengthening global competitiveness with robust development.

As companies around the world are embracing another wave of high-speed growth driven by e-commerce, industrial Internet and e-finance, Chinese brands are clearly set for a new voyage.


 

IBM announced it has completed its acquisition of Cleversafe, Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition will strengthen IBM's leadership positions in storage and hybrid cloud and support clients' drive to next generation mobile, social and analytics applications.

IBM announced on October 5, 2015, that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cleversafe. Founded in 2004, Cleversafe is a privately held company based in Chicago and a recognized market leader with more than 350 patents in object-based, on-premise storage solutions that enable clients to scale to exabytes of storage, or billions of gigabytes. Clients across multiple industries use the company's solutions for large-scale content repository, backup, archive, collaboration and storage as a service.

IBM will integrate the Cleversafe portfolio into its IBM Cloud business unit to give clients strategic data flexibility, simplified management, and consistency with on-premise, cloud, and hybrid cloud deployment options. In addition, clients will be able to use IBM SoftLayer cloud services and IBM Bluemix, IBM's cloud platform, to create dynamic and innovative applications with the Cleversafe technology as a foundational content repository and data archive.

Cleversafe's Dispersed Storage Network (dsNet®) solutions enhance on-premise storage options for clients and service providers with low-cost, large scale active archives and unstructured data content stores. The solutions complement IBM's software defined Spectrum Storage portfolio for data protection and backup, tape archive, as well as a high performance file and object solution where the focus is on response time.

 


 

ContinentalContinental, Deutsche Telekom AG, Fraunhofer ESK, and Nokia Networks demonstrated real-time communication between vehicles via the LTE cell network.

The exercise demonstrates how vehicles on the motorway can share hazard information using the LTE network of Deutsche Telekom. As extremely short transmission times are vital for this purpose, a section of the Deutsche Telekom network was equipped with innovative Mobile Edge Computing technology from Nokia Networks, and upgraded with position-locating technology developed by Fraunhofer ESK. This combination will, for the first time, permit signal transport times between two vehicles of less than 20 milliseconds. Combining the technology with the vehicle electronics interface developed by Continental gives rise to a number of different applications aimed at making driving safer and more comfortable.

The project involved upgrading Deutsche Telekom's existing LTE network of at sections of the A9 motorway test bed with Mobile Edge Computing technology from Nokia Networks. The LTE base stations were upgraded with plug-in modules (known as "cloudlets"). These cloudlets ensure that information is directly routed within the cells, instead of transporting data through the mobile network via the cloud. This means that end-to-end latency can be cut dramatically, to 20 milliseconds and below. Without the new technology, transmission of signals between two vehicles via LTE networks and the central cloud can take a hundred milliseconds in the best-case scenario, and as much as several hundred milliseconds in unfavorable conditions. Road safety applications via mobile networks are only possible thanks to this fast data transmission.

The test vehicles contain an on-board unit, which is connected to the vehicle systems and communicates with the LTE network via a wireless module. Continental supplies the interface to the cars' on-board systems via the CAN bus and the tablet application software. Fraunhofer ESK developed the GeoService software, which ensures that the vehicles' position data is recorded and processed directly at the LTE base station. The geo service at the mobile base stations allows that incident warnings can be sent practically in real-time to all vehicles in the relevant area.

 



PowerProduction Software
, a leading developer of visualization software for film and video production, and MacVideo Promo, a promotion company that offers exclusive deals on tools for video editors, announce that the Martini v2 storyboarding plug-in now supports Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 on Mac and PC.

Martini is a revolutionary post-production plug-in that brings the creativity of visualization into video editing. Rather than breaking the flow of a work-in-progress with "white-text-on-a-black-background" slugs, Martini easily creates shots that look like scenes that have yet to be shot. Loaded with hundreds of classic and unique shot styles, Martini's easy-to-use interface guides editors through the quick creation of composite shots. Editors can select a style, such as basic over-the-shoulder shots, two and three shots, and close-ups, as well as fight scenes, chase scenes, and other pre-composed multiple shot sequences. Then, editors can choose from hundreds of pre-loaded interiors, exteriors, and custom digital location photos.


 

HaryatiDigital advertising technology specialist Adknowledge Asia has announced the recent appointment of Haryati “Fey” Lawidjaja as its new Indonesian Country Director. With more than 15 years of experience in mobile and digital, and having previously held senior positions at Telkomsel and Nokia, Fey is perfectly poised to lead the expansion of the company’s Indonesian operations within SEA’s largest and most exciting digital adverting market. Fey will own the business plan and customer strategy in the market with direct responsibility for the team’s targets, growth and retention. With Fey’s guidance, Adknowledge anticipates rapid growth of the team size in Indonesia.

Fey is based out of Adknowledge Asia’s Indonesian office and reports to Damien Lavin, Managing Director, SEAR & ANZ, Adknowledge Asia Pacific. Her appointment follows the recent media announcement of Adknowledge Asia’s targeted Instagram Advertising capabilities through the new AdParlor platform, as well as the acquisition of Komli Media Inc’s South-East Asia organisation operations.



samAffle
, a leading mobile platform company, announced the appointment of Sam Li as General Manager for its Greater China business.


Affle had recently launched its 'Mobile Audience as a Service (MAAS)' platform in China in July 2015 and its China business has been growing rapidly ever since. With Sam on board, Affle is all set to expand its mobile platform business in one of the fastest growing, and the second largest mobile ad market globally.

Sam brings board extensive and relevant experience of over 14 years in top global companies like Nokia and Rovio. Prior to joining Affle, Sam was the Country Director, China and Director of Business Development & Key Accounts at Rovio - the maker of Angry Birds. Prior to that, he had spent over 10 years at Nokia and worked in various business and technology roles at country and regional levels in China, Singapore and Europe. With his significant mobile industry experience, Sam will support Affle to grow its China business exponentially.



AssafmyThings
, a global leader in programmatic advertising, announced today the appointment of Assaf Suprasky as its CEO.


Suprasky will replace myThings founder Benny Arbel who will serve as myThings' executive director. Arbel will now focus on developing the business strategy and leading the work with the company's strategic clients and partners.

Suprasky brings to myThings vast experience in managing international media and online advertising companies. Most recently, Suprasky served as Executive VP of Mobile for the AdTech company Matomy Media Group. Prior to Matomy, Suprasky had served as Vice President of Operations at Xtend Media and COO at AdsMarket US. Suprasky, who was involved in Matomy since its inception and was part of the team which led the company's IPO, played a pivotal role in Matomy's evolution into an international company with a market value of several hundred million dollars.


harvey
Recruit Institute of Technology (RIT), the research institute for artificial intelligence (AI) of Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. just announced that Dr. Alon Halevy from Google Research, who is a world-renowned authority on data management technology and AI, will head RIT.
A global research and development laboratory in Silicon Valley in the United States has been established the same day, too.

With Dr. Halevy on board as head of RIT, Recruit will further accelerate its global-scale AI research.

Dr. Alon Halevy is a computer scientist, entrepreneur and educator. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Stanford University in 1993. He became a professor of Computer Science at the University of Washington and founded the Database Research Group at the university. He founded Nimble Technology Inc., a company providing an Enterprise Information Integration Platform, and Transformic Inc., a company providing access to deep web content. Upon the acquisition of Transformic by Google Inc., he became responsible for research on structured data as a senior staff research scientist at Google's head office and was engaged in research and development, such as developing Google Fusion Tables. Dr. Halevy is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM Fellow) and received the VLDB 10-year best paper award in 2006. He is also a coffee expert and published a book, "The Infinite Emotions of Coffee," which describes coffee cultures around the world. RIT is pursuing the creation of disruptive business models on a global scale using world-class technology. Dr. Alon Halevy is a world renowned and heavily cited researcher in the areas of data management and AI. Recruit concluded that bringing him on board would mean obtaining the potential for both high level technological development and translating it into business, hence, decided to appoint him as the head of RIT. Dr. Halevy will cooperate with Recruit group companies in Japan and overseas as the executive director of RIT and Senior Vice President of Research. He will be engaged in data management and AI research and business development centering on the HR and marketing media businesses.



CirrusWorks, Inc
. is pleased to announce the addition of John J. ("Jack") McDonnell, Jr. to its Board of Directors
. CirrusWorks, Inc. is the leader in bandwidth optimization technologies. Their flagship product, The Governor™, is the only dynamic, software-defined bandwidth management tool that fully operates in an encrypted network environment.

A serial entrepreneur, Jack McDonnell brings decades of experience in building, managing and funding global data communications companies.

Mr. McDonnell has a long and successful history with the CirrusWorks team. He was an original investor in Core Communications, founded in 1999 by CirrusWorks executives. Core Communications became the market leader in hospitality conference Internet solutions, and was sold to Swisscom AG in 2006 to become the largest provider of hotel guest Internet services in the world. Prior to Core and Swisscom, the CirrusWorks engineering team worked for Mr. McDonnell at TNS, Inc., the financial transaction network services company he founded in 1990 and took public in 1994. Much of the technical development of CirrusWorks owes its legacy to Jack McDonnell and his foresight.

Mr. McDonnell is a pioneer in the electronic payments industry. Between tours at TNS, Inc., Mr. McDonnell was Chief Executive Officer of PaylinX Corporation, sold to Cybersource in September 2000, after which he served on the Cybersource Board of Directors until sold to Visa, Inc. He also served on the Board of DealerTrack Holdings, Inc. as well as several privately held companies and recently served as Chairman and CEO of terminal solutions provider Exadigm. Currently, he is Chairman of Phoenix Managed Networks ("PMN"), an international network services company focused exclusively on electronic payments.

Mr. McDonnell is one of the founding members of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association. He holds a BSEE from Manhattan College and an MSEE from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He joins Gareth Moore on the Board of Directors of CirrusWorks, representing the Series-A investment in the company, along with founders David Giannini and Richard Sternitzke.



SnapApp
, the leading SaaS platform used by B2B marketers to create, publish, manage, and measure interactive content, has received $12 million in Series A funding from Providence Equity Partners.

SnapApp's "marketers-first" platform delivers the industry's widest range of interactive content types – including calculators, assessments, quizzes, interactive infographics, and even interactive videos – in a single place. With this round of funding, SnapApp will make creating these kinds of engaging experiences more accessible than ever to B2B marketers – without the time and expense of custom development or agency outsourcing. SnapApp's partnerships and integrations with leading players in the MarTech stack, including Oracle, Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, and more, enables marketers to create experiences and content that drives more revenue, faster.



Honeywell
and Intel just showcased a prototype of a personal connected safety solution for industrial workers and first responders that would reduce workplace injury and improve productivity. The prototype was shown at Intel's Internet of Things (IoT) Insights Day, an annual event featuring innovative IoT hardware and software in development by Intel and partnering companies.


The Honeywell Connected Worker solution includes a Mobile Hub that collects and provides sensor fusion, which refers to data collected from a variety of sensors on a worker that are compiled to provide a broader and more accurate picture of what that worker is experiencing. The Mobile Hub pulls data from a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), a heart rate monitor, and several Intel® Quark™ SE microcontroller based devices, including a toxic gas monitor, an activity detection device, and a non-verbal gesture device.

The solution monitors workers for toxic gas exposure, breathing, heart rate, posture and motion. The resulting data and actionable intelligence is displayed remotely on a visual, cloud-based dashboard, giving plant managers and incident commanders the information needed to better anticipate unsafe conditions and prevent potential "man-down" scenarios that could threaten worker safety. In addition, the data can be used to prevent equipment failure that could create unsafe conditions or costly downtime.

The demonstration teamed the innovative strengths of two companies' offerings by creating a centralized command center for managing safety data. A cloud-based service connects the multiple devices, systems and data sources, and then streamlines data collection to give safety managers an integrated view of safety and compliance, all in one place that is accessible from a web browser.



Wearnes Automotive Pte Ltd, the official Singapore dealer for the world's most sought-after British sports car, Aston Martin, has appointed PR Communications Pte Ltd as its public relations agency for its Singapore operations.


The retainer contract, which commenced in October, will include the management of all Aston Martin's media relations, including influencer engagement, events management and digital engagement on the brand's social media platforms.

PR Communications Pte Ltd will be providing strategic counsel to the Aston Martin portfolio for 6 months, and will be responsible for the planning and execution of events to mark significant milestones for the brand, such as the launch of the new Aston Martin Singapore showroom and its 102nd anniversary happening early next year.



WPP's GroupM
, the world's leading global media investment group, announces plans for the addition of Essence Digital Limited, the global agency that is the world's largest independent buyer of digital media, to its portfolio in concert with WPP's acquisition of a majority stake in the company.

Following the combination of the two marketplace leaders, Essence will continue operating as an independent brand, but with the advantage of access to GroupM's global reach and infrastructure.

Founded in 2005 in London, with offices in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Singapore and Tokyo, Essence employs more than 500 people and deploys campaigns in more than 70 markets, managing media spend of over US$ 700 million. The agency blends data science, objective media, and captivating experiences to build valuable connections between brands and consumers. Current clients in Essence's rapidly diversifying client base include Financial Times, Google, HP, Viber and Tesco Mobile. While continuing to compete for business independently, Essence will also collaborate with GroupM's agencies -- Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom, and Maxus -- on specific assignments. This acquisition continues WPP's strategy of investing in fast growth markets, new media and digital, including data and the application of technology.



bob-elliottHootsuite, the widely used platform for managing social media, appointed Bob Elliott as senior vice president of global sales.


Hootsuite’s platform is the one place to build customer relationships, listen to the needs of the market and grow revenue.

Elliott brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in building high-performing sales teams and driving revenue growth at leading companies such as SAP, Ariba, i2, JD Edwards, and Sybase.

Elliott will lead all aspects of Hootsuite’s global enterprise sales strategy and execution to fuel the company’s continued revenue and international growth. Hootsuite has a customer base with more than ten million users, including 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies.

He has extensive experience leading enterprise sales, most recently as Managing Director of SAP Canada, a subsidiary of SAP SE, the world leader in enterprise software and services. At SAP Canada, he led a team of five hundred people and revenue ownership of $1 billion.

As part of Hootsuite’s plans to expand its market presence, it’s strengthening the management team with industry leaders who have proven track records of technological expertise and leadership. Recently, Hootsuite added Sujeet Kini as chief financial officer and Penny Wilson as chief marketing officer.



Youku Tudou, Inc., a leading multi-screen entertainment and media company in China and Mirriad Advertising Ltd, a global leader in native in-video advertising, have entered into a long-term exclusive collaboration arrangement in China, the world's second-largest advertising market.

In this alliance, Youku Tudou will connect Chinese and international brands with Mirriad’s award-winning technology on its platform, enabling these brands to reach China’s fast-growing consumer base through digitally embedded brand advertising in highly popular premium original content.

China continues to be one of the most attractive markets for consumer brands, as it is expected to be the world’s largest retail market by 2018, while three-quarters of the urban population is projected to qualify as middle-class by 2022.

Mirriad’s patented technology will offer Youku Tudou a vast number of new, premium advertising opportunities within its entertainment and media ecosystem (by way of ad units featuring brand integrations inserted after the content is shot). Mirriad’s patented NIVA (native in-video advertising) technology enables advertisers to digitally insert their brands into video content through products, signage, video and other branded assets at scale. Through the new collaboration arrangement, Youku Tudou will utilize Mirriad’s suite of marketplace applications to create new, prime ad inventory immediately at scale, providing content owners and distributors with editorial control over brand integrations and overall ad operations.

The first Mirriad campaign on Youku appears within talk show Life & Fate and features electronics giant Samsung as the inaugural brand to capitalize on this new opportunity. The campaign launched on Monday 19th October and features Samsung throughout 6 episodes over a 2-week period.

This announcement builds on Mirriad’s global strategy of partnerships with Universal Music Group (UMG) the global music leader, Havas, the multinational advertising and Public Relations company, and Cheil Worldwide, a leading South Korea-based marketing solutions company.



PUBLICITAS announces a new structure and leadership for Asia Pacific region. “Asia is a complex and vast region with interesting growth potential so we have made the decision to divide the region, and its leadership, into two. East Asia and Australia will be run out of Hong Kong and South East Asia and India, run out of Singapore.” Says Jörg Nürnberg, Publicitas Global CEO.

Jason Kwong joined on November 2, 2015 as Regional Managing Director East Asia and Australia stationed in Hong Kong.

Kwong joins Publicitas from Havas Hong Kong where he was Managing Director. He has over 17 years of full-spectrum experience on branding, traditional media and digital experience, including website development, eCRM, digital media, social media and mobile.

As for the South East Asia and India region, an announcement will be made during the next weeks.

Until then, Publicitas Global CEO Jörg Nürnberg will assume the management of the region personally.



operaOpera launched new versions of both Opera Mini for Android, and the full Opera browser for Android, with new and important features like video compression, installable web apps, better downloads and improved tab switching. In addition, both Android browsers come with the new and upgraded Opera logo.

The company is also excited about installable web apps, as it bridges the gap between native and web apps in an elegant way. When a user clicks “Add to Home Screen” after loading a site in Opera, a shortcut to a site is placed on the home screen of their device, allowing for an app-like experience in the web browser. Furthermore, a better download manager has been launched and a better notification feature introduced, notifying when your files are finished downloading.

Now, you can even open a new tab while you're reading the page you are on. It will open in the background with the option to quickly switch between them, allowing you to navigate across multiple sites.



Heart Media announces the acquisition of LUXUO.com and the appointment of Ashok Soman as the Group’s Digital Operations General Manager.

LUXUO.com was launched in 2007 in Hong Kong and has since grown to become one of Asia's largest luxury portals with a focus on affluent audiences. With LUXUO.com joining Heart Media, the Group will offer additional integrated and tailored solutions to its clients, with leading marketing capabilities in the print, digital and events environments.

In parallel to the acquisition of LUXUO.com, Heart Media is welcoming on board Ashok Soman, a highly respected veteran of the digital space, having started in the pioneering days of the dot-com craze in 1999. In the digital landscape of luxury, he played a key part in creating a market, in his capacity as Managing Editor and later General Manager of the online luxury magazine, Luxury-Insider, from 2008 till 2015.

Heart Media, the publisher of ART REPUBLIK, MEN’S FOLIO, L’OFFICIEL Singapore, L’OFFICIEL HOMMES Singapore, WOW (World of Watches), WOW Jewellery, FORM, ROOM, L’OFFICIEL Malaysia magazines and LUXUO is committed to publishing market leading magazines and digital media which connect with the region’s affluent and brand-conscious consumers through their chosen lifestyle activities. Heart Media’s titles have established solid reputations in their respective sectors with illustrious track records. Each one has built a strong market presence across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

With a vision to strengthen its regional growth and offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong and Shanghai, Heart Media is regarded as one of Asia's fastest growing media and publishing houses.



EASTWEST Public Relations announced its appointed as the Southeast Asia PR agency of Sansan Inc, Japan-based leading provider of  cloud-based contact management and sharing solutions. EASTWEST PR is tasked to develop and manage Sansan’s media relations programme in Singapore.

Founded in 2007 in Japan, Sansan is the leading provider of cloud-based contact- management and sharing to customers in Japan and beyond.  Sansan's business card transcription service and cloud-based collaborative contact management software has empowered businesses to leverage and share their network as a team, enhancing productivity and unlocking new opportunities.

Sansan has a portfolio of over 3,000 clients globally and works with leading international brands. EASTWEST helped Sansan announce its recent expansion in Asia with a new office in Singapore.