Atome Malaysia hires Meta's former country marketing manager

Buy now pay later brand Atome has appointed Meta's former country marketing manager, Daphne Lourdes, as its head of marketing. As head of marketing, Lourdes (pictured) will be responsible for developing 360 brand and marketing plans to drive brand awareness, brand advocacy, and user acquisition. She will also be leading a team of partnership, campaign, and social media marketers. In her role, she reports to Trasy Lou Walsh, Atome's regional general manager. 

At Meta, Lourdes was responsible for its B2B marketing in Malaysia. She was also tasked with creating innovative content and thought-leadership material to generate new business, said her LinkedIn. Before Meta, Lourdes with Astro on two separate occasions, first joining in 2014 and then returning to the company in 2017. 

In her most recent role, Lourdes was Astro Radio's general manager for digital and marketing during which she managed a team of 60. She was also a digital strategist for four months during which she evaluated and deployed new technologies. Lourdes also worked closely with Astro TV media sales and radio sales teams.

She first joined in 2014 as product manager role for Futureworks. In that role, Lourdes identified and assessed new opportunities that complemented the growth of the brand. About a year later, she took up the head of marketing role for RAKU, where she launched and set up the marketing team. She was also responsible for planning RAKU's overall marcomm strategy to acquire new users and deepen user engagement. 

Over the past year, Atome expanded into other key markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and mainland China. Last year, the brand launched an in-app loyalty rewards programme in Singapore. Aside from expanding into other markets, the brand also partnered with South Korean boy brand, ASTRO in October 2021, naming them as global brand ambassadors. According to Atome's regional head of growth, Rainal Lu, the brand saw great synergy from this collaboration as there were similar values in inspiring and empowering young, digital savvy consumers in a positive way. "ASTRO has a deep, passionate fan base across our key markets in Asia," Lu added. 

Meanwhile, Standard Chartered invested US$500 million in Atome Financial as part of a 10-year multi-product strategic partnership. The partnership leverages their strengths in finance and technology to deliver a wide range of financial services and product choice for consumers and merchants across key markets in Asia. According to the bank, the move marks one its largest strategic investments in a fintech to date, and supports its ambition to expand its reach and scale within the mass market segment via a digital-first approach, underpinned by digital acquisition and new partnership models. 

With Standard Chartered's funding, Atome Financial will be given the opportunity to grow and connect a wider ecosystem of merchants to a larger customer base,  improving product access and financial inclusion for consumers across the region. At the same time, Atome Financial’s customers also gained access to more innovative financial services, easily accessed via their mobile devices.

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