Neal and Padi head to Astro

Astro has appointed Neal Estavillo (pictured) as its new Head of Creative Solutions and VR Padmanabhan (Padi) as Head of Group Integration to strengthen the group’s media sales team.

Neal was formerly the managing director at MediaCom where he spent six years seeing the agency grow from 19 to 50 people strong to winning major accounts including P&G, Coca-Cola, Fonterra, Sunway and Celcom.

VR Padmanabhan (Padi) has previously worked with GroupM Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, MEC Chennai and Euro RSCG Bengaluru. 

Both Padi and Neal will report to the Group Director of Astro Media Sales, Chong Teck Hiong (TH).

“Our key focus is to engage and deepen our customer relationships. Over the years, we have built a team of leading sales professionals to deliver the best and most innovative solutions across our media assets for our partner agencies and advertisers.”

“Together Neal and Padi bring an invaluable combination of depth and width in media, marketing and branding communication experiences. We believe that they will provide leadership, motivation as well as strengthen Astro’s integrated offering in creating innovative marketing and branding solutions that deliver the desired business results for our clients,” says TH Chong shared. 

It has been an exciting month for Astro; the group recently announced several partnerships to strengthen its content strategy. Partnering up with South Korean media company CJ E&M Astro will be working together with CJ E&M to co-produce original IPs for ASEAN, marketing and distribution of Korean content and partnering with the group on eSports and on-ground events.