Acision, the global leaders in mobile messaging, announced two new appointments to its executive team as strategic leads for sales, marketing and services globally. Sherif Hamoudah has been appointed to EVP, Global Sales & Marketing, and Rob Bellis will lead Acision’s services organisation as EVP, Global Services - both moving from previously held senior positions from within the company. The new roles will enhance Acision’s position as a trusted mobile messaging and services provider, cementing its status in the mobile ecosystem and boosting the overall quality of experience it delivers to its customers.

Sherif Hamoudah will be taking responsibility for Acision’s global sales and marketing functions to develop new business opportunities and create synergies across Acision’s sales regions to drive strategic growth initiatives, as well as build awareness of Acision’s brand and position in the mobile messaging and services market. Sherif has more than 23 years experience in sales and marketing, working with mobile operators across the Middle East Africa and Pakistan (MEAP), including roles with Oracle’s Telecommunications, Transport & Media Industries division where he helped define Oracle’s strategy for the telecoms industry across EMEA. Sherif will continue to head up the MEAP region until a successor is appointed.

Rob Bellis will be leading the global services organization and will be responsible for improving operational efficiencies and services dynamics to create a more aligned sales, product and services coalition. Prior to Acision, Rob had an impressive track record in supply chain and procurement, delivering support and services. While at Hutchinson 3G, Rob led and closed the first 3G unified messaging platform deal from CMG.

Akamai Technologies Pte. Ltd. has appointed Frederic Moraillon as Vice President of Marketing for Asia Pacific Japan (APJ). Based in Singapore and reporting to Sanjay Singh, Vice President for Asia Pacific Japan at Akamai, Frederic is responsible for driving overall branding, field marketing and public relations functions with a focus on strategic growth opportunities across APJ

Frederic has held senior leadership roles with Business Objects, SAS Institute, PeopleSoft Inc., and Silicon Graphics. He has also led, coached, and been part of, numerous start-ups including a number of successful specialist software vendors. Prior to joining Akamai, Frederic ran a boutique public relations firm and software sales business.

APJ is the fastest growing region worldwide for Akamai and the company plans to further drive growth in key markets by strengthening branding, marketing and go-to-market strategies. Their recently introduced Akamai NetAlliance Partner program is designed to strengthen its channel network globally by working with the world’s leading hardware and software integrators, application and infrastructure service providers that are helping enterprises as they integrate the cloud into their business. To no surprise, Akamai works with some of the world’s best-known brands that use the internet for business, including one-third of Global 500 companies, the top 20 global e-Commerce sites, nine out of ten top global banks, and the top 30 media and entertainment companies.

Convergys Corporation announces the appointment of a new Asia Pacific management team with a strong background in telecommunications, information technology and sales. This team is based at Convergys Information Management business’ regional office in Singapore. Already in place for six months, the new management team is using its experience and strong contact network to help drive increased business opportunities and market share for Convergys in this key geographical region.

Raj Thangiah joined Convergys as Vice President & General Manager, Asia Pacific. Mr. Thangiah has held key leadership roles within the telecommunications, information and communications technology industries and is using his experience to drive Convergys’ growth plans in Asia Pacific. He reports to Mike Palackdharry, General Manager, Global Telecommunications, for Convergys.

Steven Ch’ng joined Convergys as Vice President of Sales, Asia Pacific. Mr. Ch'ng has over 18 years of experience in telecommunications and information technology industry sales throughout the Asia Pacific region and is focused on generating new business for Convergys. He reports to Mr. Thangiah.

Ajay Turki joined Convergys as Director of Sales, Asia Pacific. An accomplished sales leader with a 15+ year record of successful strategic and tactical leadership, Mr. Turki is working to enhance Convergys’ sales opportunities in the region. He reports to Mr. Ch’ng.

Tessa Stowe joined Convergys as Director of Sales, Australasia. An accomplished sales leader with a 20+ year track record of successful strategic client management, Ms. Stowe is working to expand Convergys’ existing client footprint in Australia and New Zealand region. She reports to Mr. Ch’ng.

Former radio personality Shareen Wong is joining SAFRA Radio as Programme Consultant for Power98 FM. In her new role, she will be supporting the Power98 FM team to accomplish key strategic developments.

Having more than 10 years of radio experience, she was the Assistant Vice President of programming for SAFRA Radio, managing both Power98 FM and 883Jia FM, before moving on to the retail industry in 2008.

Millennial Media, an independent leader in mobile advertising, announced its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region by appointing Robert Woolfrey as Managing Director. Robert joins the company to lead its operations in Southeast Asia, including establishing a presence and aggressively hiring. Singularly focused on extending the company’s in-market brand and agency sales, he will invest in both people and increasing mobile advertising and monetization education in the region. He will represent Millennial Media, that was named one of the 75 fastest growing companies on the 2011 Inc. 500, on the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)’s Asia Pacific Board of Directors, and has currently numerous openings in sales, operations, and business development in the region.

element14, part of Premier Farnell plc, appointed Devashish Saxena as Regional Marketing Director APAC. Devashish has extensive experience in online development and marketing and has, in his previous role, worked as Global Internet Marketing Director for Texas Instruments. Born in India, educated in Hong Kong and the USA, he is a truly global executive, who holds a Master Degree in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin.

International multichannel marketing specialist Epsilon has expanded its strategic marketing team in Asia Pacific to meet the growing demand for personalised cross-channel customer experiences. The Strategic Consulting and Advanced Analytics (SCAA) team provides its clients with a wide range of best-in-class marketing services to create customer experience marketing, CRM and loyalty programs; as well as to build fully optimized end-to-end multichannel campaigns.

The Asia Pacific SCAA team is led by three seasoned international consultants including Singapore-based Liz Sullivan, Director of Strategic Consulting in Asia Pacific. She leads a team of marketing consultants and analysts working with organizations to formulate data-driven marketing strategies that facilitate business growth and customer relationship development. Liz has over 12 years of client and solutions focused data communications consulting experience.

In Sydney, Will Halliday, Director of Strategic Consulting for Australia and New Zealand, has 12 years of management consulting experience providing loyalty marketing and CRM solutions. Will has significant marketing experience having worked with a range of top name brands across a number of sectors.

In addition, Mayumi Genda, Strategic Consultant for Japan, has over 10 years of marketing and program implementation experience in Japan, including membership management programs, new product launches, and development of marketing and CRM optimization plans for e-commerce companies.

These leaders will drive the SCAA efforts in Asia Pacific as Epsilon helps companies create measurable and effective communications across the region.

YouTube , the world’s largest online video sharing community, announced the launch of a localized service for Singapore. Users can visit this localized Singapore site by choosing “Singapore” as the location setting at the bottom of the YouTube.com homepage or going directly to http://youtube.com.sg. The brand new YouTube Singapore offers a local interface to easily and quickly find videos most relevant to Singaporeans, including expanded content from local and global partners. The site will create a new online space for the national community and give Singaporean creators the opportunity to increase their exposure.

With the localized site in Singapore, the YouTube Partner Program will also open to Singaporean video creators. This program enables content creators in Singapore who make original, high-quality videos on a regular basis to become content partners with YouTube and monetize their work on the site through advertising. Content creators will be able to apply online for the program at http://www.youtube.com/creators/partner.html.

Initiative, a performance-led media communications company, announced that it has won all digital activity for Nestlé’s Nescafé brand in Indonesia. Nestlé awarded the business to Initiative following a competitive pitch that involved both local and international agencies, so, Initiative will be responsible for building the Nescafé brand across digital platforms, as well as overseeing the launch of Nescafé’s ‘Journey of Life’ campaign.

iris, the award-winning independent creative agency, announced the launch of its new office in Indonesia through an agreement with the Nava+ group (named after ‘nava’ which means ‘new fresh and modern’ in Sanskrit) headed by President Director David Wibowo.

The new venture will couple the unique multi-disciplined creativity of iris, with the scale and execution capability of the Nava+ group, one of Indonesia’s leading home-grown groups of communications and marketing brands with a countrywide network.

The venture will see iris enter its fifth country in Asia with a 220-strong presence in Jakarta and a field force of over 700. The office will offer end-to-end integrated marketing solutions in line with iris’ core proposition which spans advertising, digital, retail, experiential, sponsorship, PR, management consultancy and CRM.

With iris’ headcount in Asia now over 400, the deal comes as a result of both increased demand from some of iris’ biggest customers and a new phase of growth planned by the Nava+ group. The opening will be a significant move for iris in Asia Pacific following several recent growth announcements, including the appointment of Luke Nathans as regional Development Director for Asia.

iris, whose other offices in Asia include Singapore, India (New Delhi), China (Beijing) and Australia (Sydney, Melbourne) has added a number of new clients to its roster in Asia Pacific within recent months.