Publicis Groupe SG elevates media and digital capabilities with 8 promotions

Publicis Groupe Singapore has made eight promotions across its media and digital capabilities – Oliver Spalding, Elaine Poh, Martin Davie, Vivian Yeo, Youli Hooi, Janice Liong, Patrico Blasco and Reevi Rajan.

Spalding has been promoted to the newly created role of chief strategy officer for Publicis Groupe Media and Digital Singapore. In his new role, he will be connecting the country’s strategic leaders across agencies to drive greater interdisciplinary output for clients across channels from media to experience, CRM and commerce, enabled by data, content, and technology. Spalding relocated from London to Singapore in 2014 as head of strategy for Digitas China, Hong Kong and Singapore and has been with Publicis Groupe for over nine years.

Poh and Davie have been promoted to MD for Publicis Media Singapore, overseeing domestic and international businesses, respectively. Poh has been with the Groupe for 21 years and spent 19 years at Starcom. She will oversee multi-agency teams to deliver domestic business outcomes for clients.

Meanwhile, Davie first moved to Singapore from Sydney in 2019 as GM of Performics. He will collaborate with international client leaders across global and regional offices to establish and oversee multi-agency hub teams out of Singapore for cross-market business outcomes. According to Publicis Groupe Singapore, both roles enable agency talent mobility across brands and scope for growth experience.

At the same time, Yeo has been elevated to MD, technology and operations for Publicis Media Singapore. In this role, she will partner with fellow leaders to continue the Groupe’s adoption of tech and robotic processing automation solutions, enhancing operational rigour across areas including data management, reporting, and billing processes. Yeo will also oversee Singapore’s offshore solutions from Publicis Global Delivery offices worldwide, offering local agency teams and clients with price-competitive delivery support. She has been with the Groupe since 2001 and spent 18 years at Zenith and Performics.

Alongside these promotions, Hooi and Liong will now helm the role of GM at Publicis Media Singapore. Hooi is responsible for driving growth across all Publicis Media agencies while continuing as head of Spark Foundry Singapore. Hooi was with Starcom Malaysia between 2011 and 2015, relocating to Singapore with the agency in 2017 after a client-side stint. She launched Spark Foundry Singapore last January which has since doubled in size, the agency said.

Meanwhile, Liong will expand in formal capacity to lead hub solutions for Publicis Media Singapore as the country increases connectivity with teams across Southeast Asia to help clients with the cross-pollination of solutions and ideas. She will also resume as head of Starcom. She joined Starcom Singapore in 2011 and was promoted to lead the agency last year while collaborating with fellow leaders to establish and run hub teams across international clients.

At Digitas Singapore, Blasco and Rajan are now head of strategy and head of data services respectively. Blasco now leads the agency’s strategic content output across various practices including CX, CRM/loyalty and content. He has been in Singapore for six years, joining the Groupe in 2016 under Arcade and was most recently CX strategy director for Digitas. Rajan moved from Bangalore to Singapore in 2014 and joined Digitas in 2016. He was most recently senior director for data services and his latest role aims to supercharge the use of data across disciplines within Digitas Singapore and across the Groupe’s clients.

Ian Loon, CEO of Publicis Groupe, Media and Digital for Singapore, said he is thrilled and grateful for this rare opportunity to elevate so many of its leaders under strong conditions of growth, connectivity and chemistry across Singapore.

“With dozens of other experienced and capable leaders beyond the announced individuals today, our agencies are significantly better equipped with shared firepower to lead unified customer experiences and connected marketing solutions for our clients’ business growth,” Loon added. Loon himself was appointed to this role in the fourth quarter of 2020. He also oversees Malaysia and Indonesia in his current capacity.

On an Asia Pacific level, the Groupe named Amrita Randhawa as CEO of Southeast Asia earlier this year and she officially took on the role on 1 June. She is now fully responsible for all the operations of Publicis Groupe in the Southeast Asia region, from creative to media, influence, production, commerce, data, tech and clients. Her priority will be to drive impact for Publicis' clients by making them win in a platform world, the spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE previously.

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