Andrew Kirk exits Edelman after nine years

Andrew Kirk, managing director of Edelman Hong Kong and Taiwan since 2011, has resigned after nine years at the company, effective immediately.Edelman is actively searching for a managing director for its Hong Kong office.Senior directors Adrian Warr and Andres Vejarano have been promoted to lead the office in Hong Kong, which has now nearly 100 employees. Edelman has also hired Pierre Desfretier as creative director, Edelman Digital and Shilpa Sharma as head of Edelman Berland in Hong Kong. “Under Andrew’s leadership our Hong Kong business has transformed to a multi-disciplinary and multi-channel communications and marketing agency,” said Bob Grove, CEO, Edelman North Asia. “We thank Andrew for his service and look forward to continuing our growth trajectory with the deep bench strength of our senior leadership team led by Adrian and Andres.” Warr has served as senior director of Edelman Hong Kong’s corporate practice since 2013. He joined from Portland Communications in London, where he served as a partner and ran its corporate practice. Prior to this he worked at freud Communications and at Hill+Knowlton for seven years. Warr has won a number of industry awards for his work and is an Oxford graduate in modern languages and literature.Vejarano has served as senior director of Edelman Hong Kong’s consumer marketing practice and technology sector since 2009. Prior to this he was director of global business development at B.BASE International Design Group and ran the regional APAC marketing for Xbox at Microsoft, driving communications and marketing strategy across six markets. Vejarano has also previously served at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and Unilever and is a member of Asia Society.Prior to joining Edelman, Desfretier was most recently creative director at Ogilvy & Mather. Sharma was previously associate director at TNS Hong Kong and at Nielsen.