Wunderman Thompson Malaysia CEO Saurabh Saksena exits

Wunderman Thompson Malaysia’s CEO, Saurabh Saksena (pictured), has taken on the role of president at Red Fuse Communications and will now be based in Mumbai, India. Red Fuse Communications is WPP’s full-service integrated agency dedicated to serving all of Colgate-Palmolive’s brands worldwide. It has offices in Hong Kong, Mumbai, the US, Brazil and Czech Republic.In a statement to A+M, Caroline Slocombe, regional managing director, Asia, said Saksena will have overall P&L responsibility and will report directly to her. A+M has reached out to Wunderman Thompson for comment.Meanwhile, Saksena told A+M that the chance to work for Colgate, one of the world’s most iconic and valuable brands, and in India, one of the largest and important growth markets, drove him to take on the role.“The attraction was the opportunity to actively engage in the process of creating business solutions for Colgate-Palmolive in India, an extremely valuable partner for WPP worldwide. I am excited to be part of a very warm and driven team at Colgate-Palmolive and the Red Fuse team here, and globally,” he said.He added that JWT has been his longest professional stint and he values all that he has learnt in multiple roles there over almost a decade. “I wish the team in Malaysia and APAC the very best,” Saksena added.According to his LinkedIn, Saksena said his last responsibility before moving to Mumbai was to “manage the integration of JWT and Wunderman by relocating, restructuring, and reorganising the way it worked for the combined set of clients, as a precursor to the changeover to Wunderman Thompson in Malaysia”.Saksena took on the CEO role at Wunderman Thompson Malaysia in April this year, about nine months after it combined resources under a single leadership team with Ogilvy Malaysia. Before helming the CEO role, he was the managing director of JWT prior to the merger with Wunderman last November. He replaced former managing director Nicole Tan who left to join Facebook.Prior to Malaysia, Saksena was JWT Delhi’s senior vice president and chief growth officer based in Gurgaon. He has been with the agency since 2009, first joining as its executive business director. He also worked in Ogilvy India and DDB Mudra. Saksena has extensive knowledge and skills specific to strategic brand thinking and management, development sector communication, media, sales, marketing and general management.