Twitch doubles down on APAC with 2 high profile hires

Twitch has strengthened its Asia Pacific team by bringing on board Mandar Kambli, Carousell's head of advertising platforms, and Sunil Yadav, former president of Amplifi Asia Pacific, as programmatic enablement lead, APAC and agency development lead, APAC respectively.

Kambli will be responsible for developing and supporting Twitch revenue growth across multiple regions and sharing his expertise on programmatic. He will also help to enhance Twitch's work with its customers and will manage a number of key relationships. During his time at Carousell, Kambli was in charge of programmatic operations and data initiatives. Prior to that, he was the head of products and partnerships, Asia Pacific, at Dentsu Aegis Network, now known as dentsu international. During his time there, he oversaw programmatic product, supply and data initiatives across the region.
Kambli has over 14 years of industry experience with agencies, ad tech and publishers.

Meanwhile, Yadav is responsible for leading all agency partnership negotiations and relationships. He will also help build upon Twitch's success in other regions to help Asia Pacific brands and their media agency partners develop deeper relationships with Twitch and its communities.

As Asia Pacific president of dentsu international's Amplifi, he was responsible for managing media buying and media partnership across Asia Pacific. He was instrumental in helping build its programmatic agency, Amnet, across 14 markets and launched its content agency, TheStoryLab, in Asia Pacific. Yadav has 20 years of experience across advertising, media planning and digital communications and also worked at Mindshare, Mediacom and Starcom.

Kambli said he is excited to join the company during this period of unprecedented activity and growth in Asia Pacific. "Twitch is multiplayer entertainment - it’s unique, interactive, live, and such an exciting place to be, whether you are a viewer, creator, advertiser, agency, partner or anyone in between. And our goal is to work hand-in-hand with everyone to make the most of it," he added.

Yadav added that everyone at Twitch comes together to celebrate, learn and growth their interests and passions. He is looking forward to helping agencies learn about how to best work on Twitch to do new and exciting initiatives.

"Gaming and livestreaming are two areas where APAC’s audience and its passion are unparalleled, and we are just scratching the surface of the exciting new things that are possible for brands on Twitch’s platform," he added.

In addition to these appointments, Twitch also hired its first salespeople in Taiwan, offering a physical presence to support early inroads that it has made with partners and organisations there. The new hires in Taiwan join the existing content and marketing teams in the office, and precede additional sales hires and investment in Taiwan to deepen Twitch's commitment there.

Steve Ford, VP, sales, APAC, said its pace has not slowed down since its last key hires in the region and it is excited to bring on board Kambli and Yadav. “As new users in APAC and across the world are continuing to come to Twitch, they are finding their community and forming lasting bonds with creators. Our continued expansion will make for a better experience for these new users, as well as the brands that excite them. We’re planning even more big hires across APAC in 2020 and beyond, and look forward to taking exciting new steps in a number of markets here," he added.

In August, the company named Sandeep Suvarna head of marketing in Asia Pacific, amidst its expansion in the region, to oversee its marketing strategies for Asia Pacific audiences. He will also build and implement marketing campaigns in the region. According to Twitch, his appointment forms a critical part of a wave of new hires in Singapore, to grow the local Twitch community and improve the service for all content creators, media partners, agencies, advertisers, publishers, and developers across the Asia Pacific region.

Before that, Twitch also made another major hire earlier this year when it appointed Spotify's former VP, revenue of APAC, Sunita Kaur, to be its first APAC MD. She focuses on supporting the growth of the Twitch community to benefit content creators, media partners, agencies, advertisers, publishers, and developers in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

Join us on a three-week journey at Digital Marketing Asia 2020 as we delve into the realm of digital transformation, data and analytics, and mobile and eCommerce from 10 to 26 November. Sign up here!

Related articles:
Burger King's marketing stunt on Twitch donation feature gets labelled 'unethical'
Twitch names APAC head of marketing to position for regional domination
Comscore partners Twitch to add esports into its digital solutions
Spotify's Sunita Kaur joins Twitch as first APAC MD