Wavemaker Malaysia makes slew of senior leadership appointments

Shortly after Wavemaker Malaysia promoted Sheley Lim (pictured centre) to GM, the agency has also beefed up its leadership team with a series of appointments. It has appointed Usman Bin Tahir (pictured fourth from right) from Wavemaker Pakistan as senior business director, Ryan Foo (pictured third from left) as business director, Aw Wai Choong (pictured third from right) as regional planning director, and Chua Shu Jien as business director.

They join Brandon Chang (pictured left), Ravi Singh (pictured second from left), Eldon D'Cruz (pictured second from right), and Cindy Chia (pictured right) as the executive leadership of Wavemaker Malaysia. The agency's key clients include Colgate-Palmolive, DHL Express, Hong Leong Assurance, and Carsome.

Lim said her vision is to focus on a people-first company by creating an open and inclusive culture where everyone can have their voices heard and share ownership for the direction and future of the company, create, and deliver fantastic, meaningful work for its clients and inspire as well as excite talent with its Wavemaker Provocative Planning mantra.

Part of Wavemaker's Provocative Planning agenda is the Wavemaker APAC Audience Planning workstream which Lim has actively participated in. According to Wavemaker previously, the team was formed to look at current challenges and efforts required to build a proper audience planning journey on digital. Lim most most recently head of digital at Wavemaker and has been with the agency for two years and 14 years with GroupM. In total, she has been in the industry for 18 years. She has since championed total eCommerce solutions for Wavemaker Malaysia and successfully acquired the first eCommerce exclusive beverage brand. 

Meanwhile, MD Michael Tan is stepping down in mid-May after joining in 2019 from Shopper360 where he was CEO. A search for his replacement is actively ongoing and Lim will oversee the agency in the interim.

Wavemaker Malaysia has seen steady growth in recent years, supporting both major international clients and local enterprises with their market growth ambitions, while also building a connected Asia hub that leads and coordinates APAC business out of Kuala Lumpur. This has helped the agency to produce quality work, including L’Oréal’s Virtual Beauty Festival which created new retail channels amidst the pandemic. By embracing the trends of conversational commerce and livestreaming, the team provoked a four-fold increase in sales for L’Oréal in a 12-hour beauty festival on Facebook live, which engaged more than 2.6 million potential customers.

Gordon Domlija, CEO, Wavemaker Asia Pacific said: “I am filled with genuine excitement and expectation at what this can achieve together. Effective leadership is increasingly a collective effort, bringing together exceptional talent, and combining their experiences and expertise to create a whole agency which is far greater than the sum of its individual parts. The future is bright and full of opportunity for Wavemaker in Malaysia."

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