Valerie Madon heads to Havas to take SEA chief creative officer role

Havas has hired Valerie Madon to the dual role of chief creative officer for Southeast Asia and creative lead for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) business for APAC.In her new role, Madon will be responsible for the creative output of all Havas agencies in Southeast Asia. Marketing understands she will be working closely with the creative leads from the nine markets, where the agency has a presence. She will help Havas push forward in its creative ambitions across the region by helping to build a solid creative foundation for the network through regional collaboration.Additionally, her creative lead role on the GSK account in Asia Pacific will see her working on creative output on the key global and regional brands managed out of Havas’ GSK Hub in Singapore. In her new role, she will report to Vishnu Mohan, CEO of Havas Group, Southeast Asia & India. She will also be working closely with Christian Pattman, the executive global client director of GSK at Havas APAC.Madon is a highly regarded creative with a firm foundation in digital and considerable experience in developing integrated creative solutions for blue chip brands such as Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Singapore Airlines, HSBC and Burger King.She joins the agency from Facebook, where she was the head of creative shop for Southeast Asia. Prior to that, she was the global ECD on Shell Lubricants at JWT, concurrently holding the role of chief creative officer in Singapore. She started her career with digital agency XM Asia and has also had a long stint with Leo Burnett/Arc and later Publicis Modem.Madon added: “My time at Facebook as head of creative shop for Southeast Asia made me realise that media strategy and the creative idea cannot be separated. I knew if I were to return to the "agency world", it has to be a place that believes in this too and is committed to making changes for a new creative process. All the recent headlines from Havas confirms this and more, and I am excited and honoured to be on this journey with them.”Mohan said: “As we accelerate the implementation of Havas Group’s “Together” strategy in the vibrant and high growth ASEAN, we are delighted to have Valerie on board. Her experience in creative, digital and media disciplines makes her a natural fit for our differentiated approach of a client-centric unified Havas Village model.”