Ruder Finn Asia's Charles Lankester takes on expanded role as GBA MD

International communications firm Ruder Finn Asia has promoted Charles Lankester (pictured) to the newly created role of managing director, Greater Bay Area. This new role will be in addition to his existing roles of executive vice president, global reputation and managing director, Hong Kong.

Within his new role, Lankester will be tasked with creating a unified client capability and resource for the fast-growing Greater Bay Area which consists of nine cities in Southern China including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Macau and Hong Kong. He reports to Elan Shou, CEO, Ruder Finn Asia.

In terms of how the marketing will be done moving forward, Lankester will deliver against a three-point plan including building a delivery infrastructure across all 11 GBA cities including Guangzhou and Shenzhen where Ruder Finn already has presence; advising GBA private and public sector clients who are looking to expand internationally and international clients looking to expand into the GBA.

He will also formalise a series of high value services including narrative development, executive skills, risk management, communications strategy and distribution including media/social media planning.

Currently, Ruder Finn Asia has employed 550 people in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, 700 in Asia-Pacific and 1,250 globally. The move to consolidate a Greater Bay Area (GBA) dedicated resource is driven by existing client requirements and a fast-growing volume of new business requests from domestic and international corporations, according to the release.

Elan Shou, CEO, Ruder Finn Asia said, “I am delighted that Lankester is taking up this new role and know he will be a great leader for our GBA portfolio. He knows the region very well and has run successful businesses here for many years. He is the ideal candidate to build a seamless resource amongst our strong local teams and ensure we deliver the best in client results and service."

This move comes as the agency recognises that the GBA is home to more than 86 million people, and has a gross domestic product close to US$1,700 billion across a land area of 56,000km. The GBA is home to the majority of China's most innovative technology companies including Huawei, ZTE, DJI and Tencent.

"The GBA’s areas of growth are also Ruder Finn’s areas of strength: financial services, technology and innovation, green energy and health and tourism. Ruder Finn already represents leading Chinese and global clients and under Charles’ GBA leadership, we expect this portfolio to increase significantly," Shou added.

Lankester said: "Establishing a combined talent and resource capability makes perfect sense given the current and future level of business activity in the GBA. Today, the GBA’s economy is larger than those of South Korea, Russia or Canada. The GBA population is larger than Tokyo, Delhi and Shanghai combined or the total populations of the United Kingdom, Italy or South Africa.

"Ruder Finn’s mission is clear: help our Greater Bay Area clients win. Win in business. Win in reputation. Win in talent. Ruder Finn Asia will bring proven marketing and communications advisory services to this fast-growing region. We will achieve this through dynamic, creative counsel delivered by talented executives backed by the resources of one of the world’s fastest-growing advisory firms,” said Lankester.

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