Ampersand Advisory brings on board Soumitra Dey as data consultant

Independent agency Ampersand Advisory has appointed former chief data strategist at Entropia Soumitra Dey (pictured left) as partner, data consultancy.Prior to his role at Entropia, Dey was head of platform and data at Omnicom Media Group for approximately one year, according to his LinkedIn. Before that, he was vice president, partnership, performance and data analytics at SAP Hybris for over four years. Dey also worked at Dentsu, Ogilvy, Initiative, Accenture Interactive and PepsiCo. He has over 25 years of experience in media and data consulting.Dey said he joined Ampersand Advisory because of its deep-rooted commitment to data consulting, and was drawn to its goal of "achieving business results now" for clients."The ad industry is in crisis, and the imperative need of the hour is action and results. Clients have little patience for power point strategy without capable execution. Today, consultancies are challenging agencies, and boutique agencies having the power to challenge established global ad majors," he said.Meanwhile, Ampersand Advisory has partnered with advanced analytics, AI and data sciences firm Absolutdata to offer clients rapid turnaround on data analytics, consulting and training with in-house expertise. "As the Malaysian economy grows, with the need for more than 20,000 data scientists and data-oriented thinking, the time is right for this new offering," Dey said.He added that Ampersand Advisory has received "excellent feedback" in Malaysia about the partnership, from key industries such as energy, telco and FMCG. Absolutdata has over 500 employees and has offices in Singapore, India, the UK, US and Dubai."We’re encouraged by the traction Ampersand Advisory has received, as we re-set the client-agency model. One of our key goals in the second year is to deepen the data consulting business, while we keep adding to our list of media advisory clients," CEO of Ampersand Advisory, Sandeep Joseph (pictured right) said.According to Absolutdata's co-founder Suhale Kapoor, the company has been exploring Malaysia as a key growth market in ASEAN and is happy to have found a partner who sees the opportunity the same way it does.In May this year, Ampersand Advisory tied up with Silicon Valley-funded global, real-time AI company Unscrambl, combining marketing know-how and strategic thinking with machine learning and tech capabilities. The partnership aims to help clients cut costs as well as improve acquisition rates and usage. Last year, it was appointed by the Football Malaysia Limited Liability Partnership to market the sponsorship rights of the various M-League properties. These include the Super League, Premier League, Malaysia Cup and FA Cup competitions.