Wavemaker APAC beefs up precision and eCommerce units with new heads

Wavemaker Asia Pacific has promoted Shamsul Islam to the new head of precision and has also promoted Smith Bhatt to the new head of eCommerce. Islam’s (pictured left) promotion was effective 1 June while Bhatt’s (pictured right) promotion will be effective 1 July. Both of them will continue to report to chief client officer Rose Huskey.

Through Islam’s new role as a senior leader, he will be chief advocate and expert in performance media, analytics, data and technology. He will be responsible for defining, developing, and driving precision strategy and management, through Wavemaker and its clients’ business.

Islam was previously appointed by Wavemaker as its performance director, where he oversaw digital excellence across key regional clients and local markets and led the development of Wavemaker’s regional digital centre of excellence and its impact on Wavemaker’s clients’ business across the region.

Bhatt's new role is an extension of his previous scope, where he will continue building and leading regional eCommerce and digital hubs, and drive Wavemaker's eCommerce offering better in the region. He will now also be responsible for driving growth on eCommerce pillars of strategic consulting, product, store insights and growth marketing.

Bhatt was previously the regional digital and eCommerce lead for clients across Southeast Asia, with a record of accomplishment in building and leading regional e-commerce and digital capabilities in the region. Before joining Wavemaker, he was heading the performance and eCommerce practice at Entropia – Accenture. His responsibilities comprised deploying and developing best-in-class tools to implement automation in performance marketing, and consumer journey mapping. He has experience working and managing diverse categories and large clients across the eCommerce, digital and performance spaces. 

Islam said: “The digital ecosystem is changing faster than ever before, impacting not only media, but also how people live, behave and think. The most exciting part of my new role will be to stay ahead of these changes and translate them to growth opportunities for our clients, and for our people.” He added that he is fortunate to be with Wavemaker, “where we have amazing brands that are eager to embrace change together, as well as Wavemakers who are always excited to come in every day and try something new.”

Meanwhile, Bhatt explained: “At Wavemaker, we strongly believe in driving growth for our clients by driving positive provocation. My vision is to grow our specialised Commerce offering that contributes to solving the business challenges of our clients instead of their isolated media/marketplace/product/retail challenges.”

“I am excited and confident that the duo will bring fresh and innovative approaches in all the work they do as we continue building a strong team of positively provocative future leaders and mentors,” Rose Huskey, chief client officer of Wavemaker added.

Gordon Domlija, CEO, Wavemaker Asia Pacific said: “To accelerate our leadership in the digital space, our organisational structure and ethos promotes integrated expertise that sits at the heart of our thinking and work. ECommerce, performance, audience architecture and addressable personalised content are not siloed specialisations, they are what we do every day, for every client, to deliver effective full-funnel planning and execution."

Separately Wavemaker recently made changes to its leadership structure in Malaysia with a slew of senior leadership appointments in May. It appointed Usman Bin Tahir from Wavemaker Pakistan as senior business director, Ryan Foo as business director, Aw Wai Choong as regional planning director, Chua Shu Jien as business director and promoted Sheley Lim, formerly the head of digital, to GM.

Recently, Wavemaker Indonesia also named Praveen Pandey as principal partner performance, where he will be responsible for leading performance media and eCommerce for L’Oréal. With over 15 years of experience in digital media with stints at GroupM, Omnicom Group, and Publicis Groupe, Wavemaker said Pandey brings the experience in setting up large digital businesses with a focus on biddable media and data-driven performance marketing.

Related articles:
Wavemaker Malaysia makes slew of senior leadership appointments
Wavemaker MY promotes Sheley Lim to GM, Michael Tan moves on
Wavemaker Indonesia names principal partner performance for L’Oréal