Waze Malaysia's country lead Kelvin Sim heads to AirAsia's Redbeat Academy

Kelvin Sim, former country lead at Waze Malaysia, has joined Redbeat Academy as commercial director. Redbeat Academy, a collaboration between AirAsia Digital and Waze's parent firm Google, was initially set up to upskill and cross-train AirAsia employees on AI, machine learning, cybersecurity, big data, and software engineering. It officially opened its doors to the public last October.

The academy focuses on five segments: AirAsia Allstars, corporate and SMEs, government agencies, universities, and public individuals. It offers solutions in three main areas: Skills Development Programme; Betabuild Labs, a programme offered by AirAsia supported Google to help enterprises incubate new digital businesses with employees; and career coaching and hiring service.

Besides Redbeat Academy, two other pillars under AirAsia Digital include Venture Builder and Data Centre. AirAsia Digital was rebranded from RedBeat Ventures last September. A+M has reached out to AirAsia Digital for comment.

Sim (pictured) was previously with Waze for close to three years, first joining in 2018 from Mediabrands. He was the GM of Society before it was folded under a newly-formed unit named Reprise in 2018. He also held other senior roles on the brand side, including head of digital services and activation, marketing at Digi; deputy head, marketing and business development at Tune Talk; and AVP, retail marketing at CIMB Bank. Sim also worked at InMobi for close to three years, helming the roles of sales lead for Malaysia and head, brand advertising - Malaysia and Vietnam.

Waze's spokesperson told A+M that it closed on-the-ground sales offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines last year. "Employees in those markets were impacted and there are no current plans to replace Sim's role. We have refocused our resources around fewer countries and products to fuel long-term growth," the spokesperson said.

Waze announced last year that it is parting ways with about 30 of its employees globally and scaling back operations in Asia Pacific and Latin America, as fewer users hit the roads. In addition to the countries listed above, employees in Colombia, Argentina, and Chile were also affected. Waze CEO Noam Bardin said in a letter to employees previously that these markets will continue to be serviced via “increased investments” in its self-service advertising platform, Waze Local Starter, he added. They will also be supported by the small-medium business teams in its main sales hubs. "The ads team will pare back and focus on the key markets that drive 93% of revenue and carry 95% of the kilometres driven we sell in," Bardin said.

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