SY Lau

Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent and President of its Online Media Group

Known globally as the WeChat Company, Tencent is the largest internet service provider in Asia, with a market capitalization, as of March 20, 2015, of USD 172 billion. Tencent’s mission is to enhance the quality of human life through Internet services. It delivers value-added Internet, mobile/ telecom services and online advertising, in order to fulfil the strategic goal of providing users with "one-stop online lifestyle services".

In 2006, when SY Lau joined Tencent as one of the senior management team he focused on driving corporate growth, with the specific mission of overseeing Tencent Online Media Group (OMG). Today, OMG is one of the largest media companies in the world, with a portfolio that includes a matrix of online information and entertainment products. As the market leader in China, OMG’s products and services provide penetration into a market numbering in the hundreds of millions of active users every month.

SY’s accomplishments at OMG have led to numerous honors. In 2011, New York based Advertising Age recognized him as one of “The World’s 21 Most Influential People in Marketing and Media.” In 2015 SY received another global award when he was announced as "Media Person of the Year", a highly prestigious honor awarded by the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in France. As the first person from China to receive this award SY joins a list of luminaries that include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Balmer, a former CEO of Microsoft, and Google Executive Chairman Eric Smith, among others.

With over 20 years of professional experience in the media and marketing industry, SY is highly sought-after as an industry opinion leader regarding the digital economy, digital marketing, and internet trends. His numerous activities include serving on the boards of directors for several Chinese companies, accepting invitations for speaking engagements at the executive programs of major institutions such as Harvard Business School, Stanford and Oxford Universities and regular appearances at global media events such as the BoAo Forum for Asia.

In 2014, SY was appointed as an Honorary Ambassador to the City of Brisbane, Australia in recognition of his role as, in the words of Brisbane's Lord Mayor, "a world leading global entrepreneur." More recently he has been invited to attend the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner, hosted by President Obama, as one of two special guests from China.

Alan Fairnington

Managing Partner, Duxton ConsultinG, Author of ‘The Age of Selfish Altruism’

Alan is the author of “The Age of Selfish Altruism” published by Wiley & Co in April 2010.Alan graduated from Durham University with an Honours Degree in Psychology. He joined JWT in Canada, and was later transferred to manage the Malaysian Company. He then went on to manage the newly formed JWT Hong Kong operation, and later opened JWT China and JWT Taiwan. Alan became JWT President Asia-Pacific President and was appointed to the JWT Worldwide Board and Executive Committee.

Retiring from JWT, he later assumed the CEO role at Batey at the behest of Sir Martin Sorrell. He left Batey in 2009 to establish Duxton Consulting in partnership with Laurenz Koehler. Alan has worked at the most senior management level with a broad range of clients to help deliver growth across diverse categories and markets.

Aseem Puri

Marketing Director, Unilever Asia

Aseem has 12 years of experience across Asia in brand positioning and marketing in FMCG, sales and distribution, business management, and profit and loss management. He has developed communications, innovations and marketing strategies across India, China, and South East Asia through TV, Digital, PR and Activation. He created a Number 1 category innovation and delivered 0 to US100 million turnover in 18 months!

Publisher of two books and winner of 3 Chairman’s Awards, Aseem was selected by Times of India in 2007 as one of India’s 24 leading emerging young leaders for the future. He is also Guest Faculty at Havard Business School, National University of Singapore…

Christian Thrane

CMO, DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd

Christian has been the Chief Marketing Officer of Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd since 2014. He served as the Digi’s Chief Strategy and Corporate Affairs Officer and Head of Strategy & Business Transformation before then.

And before that, Christian was Head of Market Management of the Consumer Division at Telenor Denmark, responsible for revenue, profitability and market share of Telenor’s consumer product portfolio as well as corporate analytical support functions. He joined Telenor Denmark in 2005 as Business Development Manager and was later promoted to Head of Sales and Channel Management in 2007.

He holds a Master of Science (M.Sc) Degree in Economics and Business Administration, Strategy, Organisation and Leadership from Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

George Aveling

CEO, TMI Consultancy

George moved from Australia to Malaysia in 2005 to open the TMI Malaysia office; the 36th office of TMI around the world. He came with a laptop, a suitcase, two boxes of books and a dream: to build TMI into a respected organisational development and training organisation in Malaysia. As the Malaysian based Group CEO and International Partner of TMI, as well as sister company TACK International, his forte is customer service with offices in 40 countries.

TMI’s focus is building service cultures that build differentiation, customer loyalty, businesses and brands. TMI supports this core business with leadership training, talent development and personal productivity training. George has written over 100 articles on the creation of branded culture, the customer experience, complaints handling and engaging people to deliver.

Dato’ Rozalila Abdul Rahman

CEO, Astro GO SHOP

Dato’ Roza has more than 21 years of experience in MNCs particularly in marketing and sales of FMCGs. She started her career as a management trainee with Unilever Malaysia and rose to become Quality Manager (Foods, Detergents and Personal Products) for Malaysia and Singapore. After 10 years with Unilever, she joined Kellogg Asia Marketing as Marketing Manager Innovations for South East Asia. In 2001, Roza joined Reckitt Benckiser as Marketing Manager before moving to the banking sector as Director of Sales & Marketing, Bank Simpanan Nasional.

In mid 2006, she joined Maxis as GM for Media, Research & Events. She joined Telekom Malaysia as the Chief Marketing Officer in February 2010 and led their marketing efforts for more than five years. Late last year, she took on a new challenge as CEO of Astro GO SHOP which was launched recently as a home shopping JV between Astro and Korean multimedia retailer GS Home Shopping Inc.

Ian Cruddas

CEO, Nando’s Chickenland Malaysia Sdn Bhd

Englishman Ian Cruddas has been in Malaysia since 1999 and is married to a Malaysian, with whom he has two young children. He started his working career in retail, working as a store manager at BHS, a British departmental store, and rose through the ranks to become Director of Customer Service.

Ian came to Malaysia to work with Watsons as Merchandise Manager and worked himself up to General Manager where he helped to build the company to over 220 stores. He joined Watsons Taiwan in 2006 as their managing director, overseeing 400 stores and 5,000 employees. But he missed Malaysia so much he returned to join Dairy Farm, Giant, as their group food director. He worked with the company for three years rising up to Group Commercial Director.

Ian was voted “Retail CEO of the Year 2006/7” by the retail sector in Malaysia. As CEO of Nando’s you can see him doing the ‘chicken dance’ with mascot Barci at his new restaurant openings, now totaling over 50 across Malaysia!

Bharat Avalani

Marketing Consultant / Former Regional IBC Director, Unilever Asia AMET

Bharat is a Unilever veteran with 24 years of experience and expertise in Brand Management, Consumer Insights, Media Strategy, Brand Activation, Market Development and Integrated Brand Communications. His last position was Unilever's Regional Integrated Brand Communications Director for Unilever’s Homecare category across Asia, Africa, Central & Eastern Europe Middle East & Turkey. Bharat has championed the Development of Integrated Brand Communications and Market Development Toolkits across 65 countries.

He has also shared his pointed views and experience at key Industry Events such as the Asia Pacific Media Forums, Ad Asia, World Advertising Congress, Malaysia Brandfest, Nepal Brandfest, Africa Rising and other Corporate and Industry events. Bharat who has a post-graduate qualification in Marketing, was also bestowed the Achievers & Leaders Award for Brand Leadership at the IALA Conference in Singapore 2013 & the Brand Leadership Award at the World Marketing Summit 2013.

Timothy Johnson

VP Marketing, INTI University

A seasoned marketer with over 20 years experience in Sales & Marketing spanning FMCG, Financial Services and now Education, Tim has worked with top brands at Nestle, Citibank and Standard Chartered and is now Vice President Marketing at Inti International University and College. Before Inti he was Head of Marketing at Standard Chartered Bank for five years.

He has Sales and Marketing in his DNA. As a little boy, he started selling his Matchbox toy cars to buy Enid Blyton story books, progressing to selling Reader’s Digest subscriptions to fund his Christmas clothes and finally buying and selling of companies on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) at the age of 22 to fund his final year in university.

Martin Soong

Marketing Manager, P&G Malaysia & Singapore

Martin Soong has been with Procter & Gamble for about 10 years. A qualified Scout Coach, Martin rose from the ranks starting as Country Market Operations Specialist for P&G in 2006 for three years. Then he became Assistant Brand Manager for P&G’s ASEAN Hub handling five markets before taking over Brand Operations.

Sanjeev Nanavati

ex-CEO, Citibank Malaysia

Sanjeev Nanavati is a senior advisor to the Asian banking practice for a leading global management consulting firm and is currently involved in The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan and China. He is also a senior advisor to one of the big four accounting firms a contributor to the Business Times Singapore and President of AMCHAM.

Luca Barberis

Director of Marketing, ZALORA

As the Managing Director of Marketing, Luca Barberis currently heads the marketing team of ZALORA Malaysia, Asia’s Online Fashion Destination. His roles include managing the company’s marketing activities, ranging from paid advertising to public relations and corporate partnerships. Luca is also responsible for ZALORA’s many successful marketing efforts, working together with Malaysia’s top designers; Jovian Mandagie, Syomir Izwa, and Rizalman, to bring forth exclusive collection launches.

Luca is also the founder of DS Ltd, a online and mobile publis her, running a portfolio of websites with up to 1Mil visitors per day. The company works in online advertising, software downloads and mobile apps distribution with a focus on India, Brazil and South East Asia. Prior to working with Rocket Internet and ZALORA, Luca held the position of Account Manager at Google, where he managed a $6+ Mil/Quarter portfolio of businesses (from startups to large enterprises), advising customers on a range of topics such as online marketing, international expansion and online growth strategy.

Mahesh Neelakantan

COO, Advocacy Malaysia

Mahesh who has spent over has spent over 17 years with the prestigious Ogilvy network, starting with India and then Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia - Working across main-stream advertising, brand activation, shopper marketing & restricted marketing. From Beiing a Serial expatriate of Sorts Mahesh is now excited about becoming a Serial Entrepreneur.

He recently joined Advocacy Asia as their COO to set up their Malaysia Office in late 2013. Within a year it has quickly grown from from a start-up team of 5 with 2 clients to become an Up-start agency of 22 working across brands such as Joy, Astro, Watson’s, Vaseline, Dettol, U-mobile, Febreze, BlackMore’s and Rexona. Advocacy Malaysia is part of Advocacy Asia - Asia’s only fully-integrated Word-of-Mouth (WOM) marketing company and the most awarded WOM marketing agency in the world.

This year, he has launched Newton: The Activation Company – a boutique activation and Content Marketing agency in Malaysia to capitalise on the gap in the market for such an offer.

Over the years, Mahesh has had the opportunity to be a jack of many trades – such as Advertising, activation, integrated communications, rural marketing, talent & training, competitive simulation, trade marketing & shopper marketing. He is now enjoying learning how to manage a start-up and being an entrepreneur.

Santharuban T. Sundaram

Group Marketing Manager, Permanis Sandilands

Santharuban or Ruban is in charge of overseeing all A&P and new launches for Permanis’ portfolio of brands as well as events and public relations. He was previously from Celcom Axiata, where he was Head of Communications and Planning for group digital services. Ruban was also with Permanis in the past, where he held the role of senior brand manager from 2007 to 2011. After that he was Senior Manager for Brand Management at New Straits Times Press Bhd.

Ruban has handled the launch of a few key brands in the marketplace such as Mountain Dew and Revive. He started off his career at WOW FM as an A&P executive, before moving to ntv7, where he was brand manager for four years, handling special projects, namely Deal or No DealMalaysia edition.

Margaret Lim

CEO, Dentsu Aegis Media Malaysia

With over 30 years experience in the media industry, Margaret started the first media specialist company in Malaysia and initiated the start of the Malaysian Media Specialist Association where she served as the founding President. A highly respected communications specialist she joined the Aegis network in 1998 and is credited for its growth from one company, Carat, to include Vizeum, Posterscope, Isobar, and iProspect.

Mid last year, Dentsu Aegis network appointed Margaret Lim as Chief Executive Officer to lead and oversee the newly integrated group’s operations in Malaysia overseeing agency brands Dentsu Malaysia, Dentsu Media Malaysia, Dentsu Utama, Carat, Isobar, iProspect, Posterscope and Vizeum.

Yvonne Chia

First woman in Malaysia to be CEO of a bank

Datuk Yvonne Chia is a Malaysian businesswoman and banker. She was the first woman in Malaysia to be the Chief Executive Officer of a bank. She was the CEO of Hong Leong Bank. She is currently the CEO and non-executive Director of Shell Refining Company in Malaysia and also sits on the board of Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd as a non-executive direct

She started working for Bank of America in the 1970s. She became Vice President of the Malaysian Bank of America and head of its marketing division. She left after working there for 18 years. Yvonne was awarded the CEO Eagle Pin, becoming the first woman in Malaysia to be awarded it and became the first woman to serve as Chief Executive Officer of a bank in Malaysia when she became CEO of RHB Bank in the 1990s. She later became the CEO of Hong Leong Bank and in 2013, she was named one of Forbes Asia's "50 Businesswomen In The Mix."

Eric Wong

CMO, IBM Malaysia

A world that is Instrumented, Interconnected and Intelligent is in IBM’s view representative of a Smarter Planet. As the Marketing Director of IBM Malaysia, Eric Wong was tasked to educate the Malaysian market on what is IBM’s vision of a Smarter Planet. A role that requires him to engage IBM clients, business partners, government agencies, media and industry influencers to have a conversation on IBM’s thought leadership.

With over 22 years of solid Marketing experience in the IT industry, Eric’s marketing efforts are targetted at driving brand differentiation in an industry that is crowded and constantly innovating and evolving. “Nothing stays forever in this industry. Changes in technology and business requirements are norm. It’s like survival of the best brands,” said Eric.

Eric is a councillor for the Malaysia’s National ICT Association (PIKOM), a member of the International Advertising Association (IAA) Malaysia and the Malaysian Advertisers Association. He also serves the country in his capacity as an industry advisor to Universiti Sains Malaysia and Taylor’s University to help local universities produce future talents for the industry.

Jasmine Lee

CMO, U Mobile Sdn Bhd

Jasmine Lee Sze Inn, Chief Marketing Officer of U Mobile Sdn Bhd, is responsible of all facets of marketing, including product development, product marketing and management, brand and marketing communications, customer experience management including customer engagement, financial services, loyalty & retention, MVNO and Wholesale businesses. Jasmine holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications Studies Degree from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Jasmine has close to 20 years of experience over the course of her career in telecommunications, marketing and advertising, airline/aviation, consumer electronics and digital services. Her strength is in humanising technology by making technology adoption simple, fun and engaging.

Prior to joining AirAsia Berhad as the Commercial Director responsible for all top-line matters inclusive of sales & marketing, communication & branding; Jasmine was the co-founder and CEO of MNC Wireless Berhad for more than 8 years. Her previous experiences include corporate branding, product marketing for Mobile Internet and relationship marketing in DiGi Telecommunications Berhad. product marketing & new business development (e-commerce, financial services & loyalty) at Sony (M) Sdn Bhd.

Jimmy Lim

General Manager, PHD Malaysia

Jimmy leads all PHD business functions in Malaysia, he has accumulated over two decades worth of experience during his career across media, advertising and marketing markets in Malaysia and Singapore. He previously worked at Dentsu Singapore as Head of Media.

His career took off when he was an Regional Account Director at Saatchi & Saatchi. After two years, he became Regional Business Director for Leo Burnett (Asia Pacific). Jimmy also spent over four years as Executive Director, Head of Invention at Mindshare.

Kulvinder Birring

Managing Director, Watsons Malaysia

Starting his career with a top 5 global accounting firm, Kulvinder had a helicopter view of the business of business from both financial and commercial perspectives. Later, working across Europe with McCormick exposed him to cultural differences within industries where he learned to adapt accordingly. Soon after he was offered a financial leadership role in Asia as Regional Finance Director for the AS Watsons Group which enriched his global journey and experiences.

Working in China he helped to grow the business and also learn how to manage large teams of people. Later as CEO of GS-Watsons he helped turned failing businesses around and make them hugely successful.

Today, Kulvinder brandishes the same winning style as Managing Director of Watsons Malaysia.

Kim Walker

Founder & Chairman, Aprais Worldwide

Aprais is the world’s leading business consultancy that helps companies improve the productivity of their relationships with suppliers, particularly among advertising agencies and their clients. For 14 years, Aprais has evaluated over 13,500 client-agency relationships his clients include over 250 leading marketing companies and 430 communication agencies covering 50 markets globally.

He has been COO for Carat Asia Pacific, President Isobar APAC and Regional CEO, M&C Saatchi. Kim was among the first wave of volunteers to reach the victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in Meulaboh, Aceh in Jan 2005!

He has trekked the upper reaches of the Himalayas five times, throughout Patagonia and to the summits of Mt Kilimanjaro. Kim is also a singer-songwriter and has released two albums.

Eric Wong

Customer Franchise Director, Citibank Berhad

Eric has been with Citibank Berhad since March 2011 after successful career stints with Unilever and BAT in senior marketing roles. Eric then joined Citibank Berhad as Country Marketing Director. He had full responsibility for Marketing and Digital Banking and rapidly immersed himself in the banking business. In a short span of time, he re-organized the Marketing department to focus on delivering against the global consumer banking strategy, tightening the customer targeting model to against emerging affluent and high net worth customers and transitioning the firm to a data-led organization. He also set out the digital strategy for the bank in pursuit of Citi’s vision of becoming the world’s premier digital bank.

Under his stewardship, key areas that have seen prominence is the way Citibank interacts and communicates within the shopping mall environment, ubiquitous brand presence in both the physical and digital space and digitization effort across the firm, truly revolutionizing the way the bank engages with its customers.

Most recently, Eric took on an expanded role with additional responsibility in Customer Experience and Decision Management on top of Digital Banking and Marketing. This new role enhances the bank’s focus in ensuring a client-centric model and put remarkable client experience at the center of everything the bank does.

Eric has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration majoring in Accountancy from University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. In his free time, Eric is an avid traveler and spends time with his family. Eric lives with his wife and two children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Gaurav Bhasin

CEO - mudah.my

Gaurav’s passion for architecting new monetization models in the digital/hybrid space, cognitive sciences and building brands led him to join the leadership team of 701 Search in July 2010. Here he is responsible for the conceptualizing and implementing the marketing & monetization strategy of the group across the region.

During his 15year career he has spent almost equal time in India, Malaysia & Singapore at JWT, MindShare and Universal McCann handling roles that span strategic planning, regional/local media management, country leadership and incubating new business models. Winner of various creativity & effectiveness awards he is credited with nurturing a culture of innovation & curiosity wherever he has worked.

Gaurav has accumulated rich experience of working across a gamut of diverse product categories & clients in APAC Nestle, J&J, Coca-Cola, Gillette, DiGi, Motorola, Intel, Mastercard, Lufthansa and Swatch Group being some of them.

Laurenz Koehler

Managing Partner, Duxton Consulting

Laurenz co-founded Duxton Consulting together with Alan Fairnington. His passion is understanding consumer motivations and delivering the insights which deliver brand growth. His expertise lies in indepth interviewing and the delivery of insight platforms which can be used for marketing programs and innovation.

He has moderated many ‘co-creation’ innovation workshops for a broad range of clients, and helped bring many new products and services to market. With a degree from the Ruhr University in Economics and over 12 years of strategic experience on 3 different continents, Laurenz brings considerable breadth of knowledge of diverse markets and consumers.

Janet Lee

Culture Creation Evangelist, Ninety Five Percent

In her 20-year advertising career, Janet Lee has been a Copywriter, Executive Creative Director and a founding member of Spider Network; an agency that rose to international fame by picking up over 40 major global awards, namely The One Show, The New York Festivals and the New York Art Directors Club.

In 2000, Janet began a second career in experiential training, which eventually led to the establishment of Ninety Five Percent Sdn Bhd. As a trainer and business owner, Janet designs and delivers innovative programmes to meet the industry’s growing need to stay ahead of the curve. In recent years, Janet has began successfully developing and deploying Culture Transformation Programmes and implementing transformation strategies. Companies that have benefited from the tangible results produced by these 3-6 month long programmes include, the Marketing Division of MDeC (Multimedia Development Corporation), Publicis Malaysia, Publicis Jakarta, UM Specialist Centre, The TBWA Group and Seven Sunday Films.

Prashun Dutt

Chief Marketing Officer - The Sun, Consultant - Berjaya Group

Prashun is Chief Marketing Officer of The SUN, and former Director, Strategic Planning & Research of The Economist, is one of the rare Asian professionals with an impressive track record in the global arena, in top-tier ad-agencies and media corporations across 3 continents. After 14 years with ad-agencies, JWT, McCann Erickson, O&M and Bozell he has since successfully leveraged his expertise over the past 2 decades in senior roles with global media channels including Times Publishing, Forbes, CNBC, MTV and Economist.

Nik Radzi

Head of Marketing and A&P - New Media, TM Berhad

Having spent the last 17 years in advertising, bearing different roles throughout the years, Nik is now Head of Marketing and A&P at TM Berhad. Working with the Business Integration Unit at Telekom Malaysia he is responsible for delivering the overall product and go to market strategy for the New Media business. Managing a portfolio of services cluster, executing creative and strategic planning, analytics, digital application management and direction rationalisation.

Julie Chen

VP Marketing - Munchworld Marketing

Julie has been in branding and marketing for almost a decade, Before Munchworld Marketing she was head of the Chocolates at Mondelēz International and earlier Head of Biscuits at Kraft Foods. She was also senior brand manager at GSK Consumer Healthcare for four years.