MMC 2018

SPEAKERS BIO

	BALA POMALEH CEO, IPG MEDIABRANDS Before helming IPG Mediabrands Malaysia, Bala was CEO of Carat Malaysia. He has been in advertising since 1991, starting off as a Media Research Assistant, and worked across a select few agency groups since then. He joined Aegis Media with Carat in 2006, but was soon offered the opportunity to lead Aegis Media sister company Posterscope Malaysia, to become the top OOH specialist in the country. In 2012, he came back to Carat as CEO. Bala has been in the industry for 24 years and won numerous awards including the MSA and Aegis Media Awards.
	TIMOTHY JOHNSON SENIOR VP MARKETING INTI INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY & COLLEGES 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.
	SPENCER LEE HEAD OF COMMERCIAL, AIRASIA BERHAD Spencer Lee has been Head of Commercial at AirAsia Berhad since 2014. Mr. Lee oversees the entire Malaysia Commercial function and is accountable for its profit and loss. He joined AirAsia in 2006 as a Marketing Manager and moved on to set up the Ancillary Income Department. He served as Head of Marketing at AirAsia Berhad since 2013. He has pioneered a number of projects in AirAsia, especially Ancillary products, and was instrumental in setting up the AirAsia BIG loyalty programme. He also won the best co-brand credit card programme with Citibank, the best use of TV with Media Prima, Social Media and Digital during his marketing period at AirAsia. He has over 13 years of experience in fields that include marketing, advertising, sales, communications, mobile and loyalty programmes.
	SANTHARUBAN T. SUNDARAM VP - MARKETING MANAGER, ETIKA HOLDINGS Santharuban or Ruban has been in marketing for about 16 years. He is now Group Marketing Manager,Etika Holdings (formerly Permanis) in charge of brand marketing, events and sponsorship, public relations as well as new product development for brands like Wonda, Calpis, Goodday, Mountain Dew, Revive, Tropicana, Pepsi, etc. Ruban has served Permanis for 7 years and was previously with ntv7, NSTP, WOW FM and Celcom Axiata. He has judged for award shows like the Effie, PMAA Dragons of Asia, etc. The innovation and differentiation behind the launch of Wonda and Mountain Dew has won Permanis awards like a Gold Effie in 2014, MMA Advertiser of the Year 2015, and Marketer of the Year at the AMEA 2015 awards.
	Linda Hassan Head of Marketing Domino’s Pizza Malaysia & Singapore Linda Hassan, Head of Marketing for Domino’s Pizza Malaysia and Singapore has been leading the brand growth for the past seven years. Focused on a clear vision for Domino’s Pizza’s brand success, she single handedly formed and currently leadsseven key sections, which comprise of Creative & Designs, Brands & Communications, Public Relations & Events, Data Analytics & Customer Lifecycle Management, Digital, Sales &Local Store Marketing and New Product Development. With close to 20 years of international QSR industry under her belt, she was instrumental in developing a dynamic and engaging brand positioning for Domino’s Malaysia while growing Singapore’s brand presence. Her solid leadership, coupled with strong business acumen has resulted in significant business growth for both markets.
	Mohd Adam Wee Abdullah Group Chief Marketing Officer CIMB Group Holdings Berhad Adam oversees CIMB’s group-wide marketing and brand management function across all its geographies and business. Adam holds a Master in Business Administration degree from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is a veteran in the marketing field with a career spanning more than 25 years. He brings with him diversity, depth and breadth of experience across the entire marketing value chain from sales, advertising, strategic planning, branding and marketing management. Almost half of his career was spent in multi-national advertising and brand agencies where he held senior and regional positions working on a diverse range of categories which included financial services, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), hospitality and travel, automotive, property and telecommunications sectors as well as managing category leading brands. Prior to joining CIMB, Adam was the Group Chief Marketing Officer in Maybank Group from 2011 to 2015. He also held the position of Chief Marketing Officer of Sunrise Berhad and before that, as Director of Brand and Advertising in ASTRO. Adam’s marketing experience also includes regional marketing management for BMW Group’s regional headquarter based in Singapore, where he was responsible for directing marketing strategies and activities for BMW Group distribution partners in 17 countries across India, China, South-East Asia and the South Pacific Islands nations.
	Gaurav Bhasin CEO - Mudah.my Gaurav helms mudah.my, a regional platform for consumers to buy and sell. The portal is owned by Mudah.my Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of 701Search Pte Ltd, a joint-venture company between Singapore Press Holdings Ltd, Schibsted Media Group and Telenor Group. Bhasin was also previously the regional COO of 701 Search which is a media company specialising in building and growing online marketplaces in SouthEast Asia. He also has agency experience working in roles such as CEO of Universal McCann Singapore and as CEO of IPG Mediabrands Sdn Bhd in Malaysia. Bhasin also held senior roles in agencies such as MindShare and J Walter Thompson.
	Ranganathan Somanathan CEO - Malaysia & Singapore Omnicom Media Group (OMG) Ranganathan heads OMG’s Singapore and Malaysia operations, looking after agencies OMD and PHD. He joined OMG from Starcom Mediavest Group where he was chief operating office of SEA and head of global network clients for the region. Prior to his role at Starcom Mediavest Group, Somanathan led VivaKi Malaysia as chief executive. He has also been the vice chairman of ABC and was president of the Media Specialists Association from 2009 to 2012.
	Prashant Kumar Founder of ENTROPIA Prior to this, he was the President of IPG Mediabrands Asia for World markets and CEO of IPG Mediabrands Malaysia. A one time Dotcom entrepreneur, he has been a thought leader in the areas of Social marketing & agency of the future models. He conceived and launched a slew of new offerings – Rally for Social marketing, Ensemble for whole brain content, Ingenuity for eCommerce services, Sixth Sense for Data management, which all went on to become successful offerings winning Asia-wide recognitions and exported widely in the network. Under his watch UM Malaysia became Agency of the year six times in seven years at Malaysian Media Awards. It also became the #1 Media agency in the world out of 900 agency offices rated by RECMA Paris – the industry rating body. Asia WM became the fastest growing region in the network in this stint, and he led the winning of J&J, Yum, Reckitt and Malaysia Airlines businesses across the region. Earlier he headed Communication Planning for UM Asia-Pacific, driving hybrid culture across the network. Prashant is the only person from Malaysian media industry to serve on the Cannes Media Lions jury and one of the youngest; has been a speaker at DMEXCO Germany; Festival of Media Global in Rome; and has been interviewed widely by Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

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	BALA POMALEH CEO, IPG MEDIABRANDS Before helming IPG Mediabrands Malaysia, Bala was CEO of Carat Malaysia. He has been in advertising since 1991, starting off as a Media Research Assistant, and worked across a select few agency groups since then. He joined Aegis Media with Carat in 2006, but was soon offered the opportunity to lead Aegis Media sister company Posterscope Malaysia, to become the top OOH specialist in the country. In 2012, he came back to Carat as CEO. Bala has been in the industry for 24 years and won numerous awards including the MSA and Aegis Media Awards.
	TIMOTHY JOHNSON SENIOR VP MARKETING INTI INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY & COLLEGES 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.
	SPENCER LEE HEAD OF COMMERCIAL, AIRASIA BERHAD Spencer Lee has been Head of Commercial at AirAsia Berhad since 2014. Mr. Lee oversees the entire Malaysia Commercial function and is accountable for its profit and loss. He joined AirAsia in 2006 as a Marketing Manager and moved on to set up the Ancillary Income Department. He served as Head of Marketing at AirAsia Berhad since 2013. He has pioneered a number of projects in AirAsia, especially Ancillary products, and was instrumental in setting up the AirAsia BIG loyalty programme. He also won the best co-brand credit card programme with Citibank, the best use of TV with Media Prima, Social Media and Digital during his marketing period at AirAsia. He has over 13 years of experience in fields that include marketing, advertising, sales, communications, mobile and loyalty programmes.
	SANTHARUBAN T. SUNDARAM VP - MARKETING MANAGER, ETIKA HOLDINGS Santharuban or Ruban has been in marketing for about 16 years. He is now Group Marketing Manager,Etika Holdings (formerly Permanis) in charge of brand marketing, events and sponsorship, public relations as well as new product development for brands like Wonda, Calpis, Goodday, Mountain Dew, Revive, Tropicana, Pepsi, etc. Ruban has served Permanis for 7 years and was previously with ntv7, NSTP, WOW FM and Celcom Axiata. He has judged for award shows like the Effie, PMAA Dragons of Asia, etc. The innovation and differentiation behind the launch of Wonda and Mountain Dew has won Permanis awards like a Gold Effie in 2014, MMA Advertiser of the Year 2015, and Marketer of the Year at the AMEA 2015 awards.
	Linda Hassan Head of Marketing Domino’s Pizza Malaysia & Singapore Linda Hassan, Head of Marketing for Domino’s Pizza Malaysia and Singapore has been leading the brand growth for the past seven years. Focused on a clear vision for Domino’s Pizza’s brand success, she single handedly formed and currently leadsseven key sections, which comprise of Creative & Designs, Brands & Communications, Public Relations & Events, Data Analytics & Customer Lifecycle Management, Digital, Sales &Local Store Marketing and New Product Development. With close to 20 years of international QSR industry under her belt, she was instrumental in developing a dynamic and engaging brand positioning for Domino’s Malaysia while growing Singapore’s brand presence. Her solid leadership, coupled with strong business acumen has resulted in significant business growth for both markets.
	Mohd Adam Wee Abdullah Group Chief Marketing Officer CIMB Group Holdings Berhad Adam oversees CIMB’s group-wide marketing and brand management function across all its geographies and business. Adam holds a Master in Business Administration degree from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is a veteran in the marketing field with a career spanning more than 25 years. He brings with him diversity, depth and breadth of experience across the entire marketing value chain from sales, advertising, strategic planning, branding and marketing management. Almost half of his career was spent in multi-national advertising and brand agencies where he held senior and regional positions working on a diverse range of categories which included financial services, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), hospitality and travel, automotive, property and telecommunications sectors as well as managing category leading brands. Prior to joining CIMB, Adam was the Group Chief Marketing Officer in Maybank Group from 2011 to 2015. He also held the position of Chief Marketing Officer of Sunrise Berhad and before that, as Director of Brand and Advertising in ASTRO. Adam’s marketing experience also includes regional marketing management for BMW Group’s regional headquarter based in Singapore, where he was responsible for directing marketing strategies and activities for BMW Group distribution partners in 17 countries across India, China, South-East Asia and the South Pacific Islands nations.
	Gaurav Bhasin CEO - Mudah.my Gaurav helms mudah.my, a regional platform for consumers to buy and sell. The portal is owned by Mudah.my Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of 701Search Pte Ltd, a joint-venture company between Singapore Press Holdings Ltd, Schibsted Media Group and Telenor Group. Bhasin was also previously the regional COO of 701 Search which is a media company specialising in building and growing online marketplaces in SouthEast Asia. He also has agency experience working in roles such as CEO of Universal McCann Singapore and as CEO of IPG Mediabrands Sdn Bhd in Malaysia. Bhasin also held senior roles in agencies such as MindShare and J Walter Thompson.
	Ranganathan Somanathan CEO - Malaysia & Singapore Omnicom Media Group (OMG) Ranganathan heads OMG’s Singapore and Malaysia operations, looking after agencies OMD and PHD. He joined OMG from Starcom Mediavest Group where he was chief operating office of SEA and head of global network clients for the region. Prior to his role at Starcom Mediavest Group, Somanathan led VivaKi Malaysia as chief executive. He has also been the vice chairman of ABC and was president of the Media Specialists Association from 2009 to 2012.
	Prashant Kumar Founder of ENTROPIA Prior to this, he was the President of IPG Mediabrands Asia for World markets and CEO of IPG Mediabrands Malaysia. A one time Dotcom entrepreneur, he has been a thought leader in the areas of Social marketing & agency of the future models. He conceived and launched a slew of new offerings – Rally for Social marketing, Ensemble for whole brain content, Ingenuity for eCommerce services, Sixth Sense for Data management, which all went on to become successful offerings winning Asia-wide recognitions and exported widely in the network. Under his watch UM Malaysia became Agency of the year six times in seven years at Malaysian Media Awards. It also became the #1 Media agency in the world out of 900 agency offices rated by RECMA Paris – the industry rating body. Asia WM became the fastest growing region in the network in this stint, and he led the winning of J&J, Yum, Reckitt and Malaysia Airlines businesses across the region. Earlier he headed Communication Planning for UM Asia-Pacific, driving hybrid culture across the network. Prashant is the only person from Malaysian media industry to serve on the Cannes Media Lions jury and one of the youngest; has been a speaker at DMEXCO Germany; Festival of Media Global in Rome; and has been interviewed widely by Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.