Dentsu Aegis Network Malaysia beefs up local team with 3 new hires

Dentsu Aegis Network Malaysia has made three new hires under its Dentsu LHS and Dentsu One units.Dentsu LHS appointed Milan Agnihotri (pictured left) as chief catalyst of brand planning and strategy, and Liew Mun Tip (pictured right) as its group brand director. Both of them will report to CEO of Dentsu LHS Tony Savarimuthu. Meanwhile, Dentsu One also hired its new strategic planning director Chia Mei Yeng.Dentsu Aegis Network told A+M that the new appointments will effectively bolster the respective agencies’ planning and strategy capabilities in innovating the way brands are built for clients. It will also serve to collaborate at the group level to empower Dentsu Aegis Network in integrating planning and strategy resources in Malaysia.At Dentsu LHS, Agnihotri’s key result areas will be to work out data-driven creative solutions for client’s business problems, leading strategy for new business development and building knowledge capabilities for the agency. For the past 23 years, he has worked in key Asian markets namely India, China, Singapore and Malaysia for Grey Worldwide, FCB, Mccann Worldgroup and most recently Leo Burnett. At Leo Burnett he led communications planning on brands such as Petronas, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Isuzu, Nestle, Maxis, L’Oreal and OCBC Bank amongst others."These varied planning experiences have upskilled him in solving business issues through communications, especially in increasing solutions in a participatory ecosystem of multiple screens amid the evolution of marketing communications into content," said Dentsu Aegis Network’s spokesman.On the other hand, Dentsu LHS’s new group brand director Liew is tasked to drive business results for brands by providing strategic input from insights generation to final ideation.Liew joined Dentsu LHS with 10 years of marketing and communications experience, including stints at Spencer Azizul, Mccann Worldgroup and most recently Leo Burnett. She has managed accounts and projects for clients across various industries, such as Dutch Lady, AIA, Procter & Gamble, Eco World, Maxis and OCBC Bank, to name a few. Prior to her foray into the communications industry, Liew was heavily involved in championing community work, mainly in women and children’s welfare initiatives.Meanwhile, Chia Mei Yeng, Dentsu One's new strategic planning director will be overseeing strategic planning for all key account. In addition, she is responsible in helping to develop new business opportunities in growth areas such as content and shopper marketing, scaling the agency’s offerings to clients. A senior planner with 13 years of experience, Chia  joined from Leo Burnett, where she was the shopper strategic lead on Dutch Lady, Carlsberg, Philip Morris and Pfizer. Prior to that, she has clocked experience abroad, leading shopper planning for Samsung and Procter & Gamble in Singapore while working for Cheil and Saatchi & Saatchi.Lim Sue-Anne, chief of group insights and strategy at Dentsu Aegis Network Malaysia said, “As an industry, we are experiencing reverse integration at a scale much wider than when agencies were still offering full-service capability, thanks to the digital revolution. This has prompted us to relook at the strategy of how we manage our client briefs – each individual is unique and brings a wealth of multi-disciplinary experience from various categories and vertical specialty."She added that cultural and background diversity is equally important for the brand in helping to build a formidable planning unit within the Dentsu Aegis Network group.