Shashank Tripathi

The International Conference on Online Media Measurement (I-COM), is increasing its involvement with the Asia Pacific region by expanding its presence and engaging with local and regional associations that are driving the future of Online Measurement. I-COM focuses on exploring measurement issues facing the Digital Advertising Industry, with the goals of international cooperation, information sharing and working toward consensus on best practices. In order to facilitate the regional engagement, I-COM has appointed Shashank Tripathi as Vice Chair, Asia Pacific. Tripathi most recently held the post of Regional Executive Director, Asia Pacific at StarcomMediaVest Group.

Shashank Tripathi is a senior marketer with global experience in 22 countries across three continents, and has been based in Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Chicago and Singapore. He has also held regional and management roles at Mindshare, Universal McCann, Leo Burnett, Dentsu and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He has had diverse exposure to marketing strategy, media, public relations and analytics with the world’s leading consulting firms and networks, and brings this experience to his position at I-COM.
Marcelo Alba

Mediabrands appoints Marcelo Alba as Regional Communications Planning Director, Asia Pacific. Based in Singapore, Marcelo will work closely with existing clients across the region providing insights as well as guidance on strategy and planning.

Marcelo joins Mediabrands from UM San Francisco, where he had served as Communications Planning Director since 2009. In this role, Marcelo employed custom research technologies that helped clients understand how people make decisions about technology, as well as how different media outlets affect these decisions. His findings helped to influence targeting, creative development, media buying and custom media integrations.

Prior to UM, Marcelo was a Creative Strategist at Rock River Music and before Rock River, he was an Account Planner at T.A.G. / McCann-Erickson and started his career as a Junior Account Planner at Publicis & Hal Riney.

Throughout his career, Marcelo has won several accolades, including a Grand Prix at the 2008 Cannes for Integrated Campaign as well as Web Film.

In his new role at Mediabrands, Marcelo will report directly to Natalie Pidgeon, Head of Strategy, Mediabrands Asia Pacific.

 
Elaine Chan

WATATAWA, the Singapore-based stakeholder engagement consultancy, has added more top talent to its regional leadership team in Asia.

Elaine Chan is joining WATATAWA in Hong Kong as associate partner, who was formerly senior vice-president at Financial Dynamics. Ms. Chan was previously at the South China Morning Post, including as business news and features editor and China business editor, and with Bloomberg as bureau chief in Shanghai.

In Singapore, Lynn Lee will be joining the WATATAWA team on September 1. Lynn has spent the past eight years with The Straits Times, most recently as its Indonesia bureau chief.

Ms. Chan and Ms. Lee have added to WATATAWA’s considerable consulting firepower on the heels of the recent arrivals of Financial Times veteran John Burton as the firm’s Seoul-based regional head of media strategy, former Burson-Marsteller Singapore market leader Allison Lim as an associate partner and former Financial Dynamics Singapore head Laurel Teo, also as an associate partner.

Lynn Lee

The founding partners at WATATAWA also include Simon Pangrazio, who had succeeded Bill Rylance as Asia-Pacific CEO of Burson-Marsteller, and Bryan Matthews who ran B-M’s Korea operation for many years.

WATATAWA draws its name from “Walk the Talk, Talk the Walk”. The firm currently works with clients in the Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesian markets.

 
Mark D. McLaughlin

Mark D. McLaughlin joins Palo Alto Networks as President and CEO. McLaughlin will commence his new role later this month following his departure as president and CEO of VeriSign. Upon joining, McLaughlin will also become a member of the Board of Directors at Palo Alto Networks.

At the same time, the network security company released several financial metrics, including that it has achieved a bookings run rate well above the US$200 million mark and that its cash flow from operations has been positive for five consecutive quarters.

Within its recent fiscal year ended July 31, Palo Alto Networks doubled its employee count. To accommodate this growth, Palo Alto Networks recently moved into a larger headquarters located in Santa Clara at 3300 Olcott Street. Palo Alto Networks continues to aggressively hire engineering, sales, marketing, product management, services and support professionals in the Bay Area and worldwide, and has over 300 planned openings within this new fiscal year.
Network Box's New PRC office

Network Box PRC officially announced that it is opening a new Sales Office, complete with both state-of-the-art Training and Demonstration facilities, in the southern port city of Jiangmen, China. This new sales office will help serve Network Box clients in Guangdong Province, China. Additional Network Box Sales Offices, as well as Security Operations Centers, are planned for both China, and other parts of Asia, and will be announced at later dates.