Publicis Groupe names Malaysia MD to oversee media and digital

Publicis Groupe Malaysia has appointed Sudarshan Saha as MD - media and digital. According to his LinkedIn, Saha (pictured) will be responsible for driving the business growth of Starcom, Zenith, Spark Foundry, Performics, Digitas and PMX. It is understood that he began his role on 1 March.

He reports to Publicis Groupe CEO for Malaysia Neil Hudspeth, with regional reporting to Ian Loon who was appointed Publicis Groupe CEO for media and digital across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in the fourth quarter of last year. Saha will lead a newly configurated team of senior leaders and digital experts, notably Piyee Wong, Randolph Tan, May Har Siew, Karan Tyagi, Vinod Kumar, Shelly Ng and Ugandhar Pilla.

Saha previously worked at Mindshare for more than four years altogether in Vietnam and Indonesia. He last helmed the role of MD, Vietnam for more than three years and led the team to drive product development, trading efficiency, innovation, improving demand and supply side inventory using programmatic. According to his LinkedIn, he also started the agency's performance and eCommerce practice in Vietnam.

Meanwhile in Indonesia, Saha was head of strategy, leader for more than a year and was responsible for the Nestle, GlaxoSmithKline and Mattel Inc accounts, with a short stint in managing Nestle Malaysia too. According to his LinkedIn, Saha accelerated the digital advertising growth in these client businesses, streamlined strategy and process/operations, and helped improve client-agency relationship.

Prior to Mindshare, he was with MediaCom for close to three years, leading the P&G ASEAN team as head of planning. During his time there, Saha was responsible for leading the planning and strategy function for ASEAN regional team. He also helmed the role of client leader at Maxus, now known as Wavemaker after its merger with MEC, and oversaw the business of Perfetti and Pernod Ricard, his LinkedIn said. In addition to his wealth of agency experience, Saha also worked at Reliance Broadcast Network as associate VP, Radio City India as senior manager - marketing, and ICICI Bank as marketing manager.

Saha said he is excited to join Publicis at a time when the client and the market demand for a consolidated approach to media, creative, data and tech are at an all-time high. "I am keenly looking forward to partnering with the leadership team of Publicis in delivering the “Power of One” vision of driving synergies across the Groupe’s offering to help drive our clients’ business," he added.

Meanwhile, Hudspeth said: “Connecting the growth dots for our clients across a diversified platform world is imperative to help accelerate their growth. I am delighted that we are bringing Saha into the Malaysian Publicis Groupe family to help us accelerate this connectivity.”

The appointment comes shortly after the Groupe named Firzan Mulafer as MD for Publicis Communications in Malaysia to drive efficiency and effectiveness of the creative hubs under Publicis Communications, namely Leo Burnett, Publicis, Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid and Publicis Emil. He began his journey with Publicis Groupe in 2006 in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, its Malaysian operations saw a leadership change in January when Hudspeth took over Tan Kien Eng, who subsequently joined dentsu Malaysia as CEO

Related articles:
Publicis Communications names new Malaysia MD
Publicis Groupe names new chief creative officer for APAC
Publicis Groupe MY names new CEO as Tan Kien Eng steps down