LEWIS Malaysia's GM Ann Chong promoted to head Southeast Asia

LEWIS Malaysia's general manager Ann Chong (pictured) has been promoted to head of Southeast Asia. In her new role, she will support the agency's growth into new markets such as Indonesia and Thailand.She will also take over Singapore leadership from managing director Fairil Yeo, who moves into a regional role as head of transformation. He will help clients to re-architect and retool their marketing communications functions to be more in line with today’s ‘digital first’ consumer and buyer behaviour. Chong was promoted to her current role in January this year, while Yeo was appointed managing director of LEWIS Singapore last July.Meanwhile, head of LEWIS Hong Kong, Keso Kendall, will expand her leadership role to encompass the emerging Greater Bay Area, overseeing the setting up of two new offices. In mainland China, Yumi Liu will take on a new Beijing office leadership role. Completing a trifecta of key changes in Greater China is current Hong Kong team member Victoria Guo, who will be relocating to Shanghai to lead the office effective 1 August.The key management appointments are in a bid to help drive the agency's APAC 2020 expansion plan, which was announced in May this year. The plan will see LEWIS invest US$6.5 million to increase its presence and evolve its service offerings in Asia Pacific. This includes the creation of eight new offices in cities including Bangkok, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City and Melbourne, and three new digital hubs in Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney. Over 200 roles will be created, including heads of search, analytics, paid media and content creation in addition to account servicing functions at all levels.Additionally, the company has also placed twenty new team members in account service and operational support functions. These include a specialist in-house digital recruiter to rapidly scale recruitment in areas such as paid media, search, digital content and production.APAC senior VP Scott Pettet said Chong, Yeo, Kendall, Guo and Liu each embody a wide range of dimensions of the agency's culture, such as ambition, tenacity, modernity and an unwavering commitment to excellence.“I’m very pleased to be able to elevate these outstanding professionals into key leadership roles. These appointments significantly bolster our senior management layer, allowing us to execute effectively on our APAC 2020 plan," Pettet said.