Sheila Shanmugam CEO Mindshare Group Malaysia, Elected As MSA President For The Term 2024-2026

The Media Specialists Association (MSA) is pleased to announce the election of Sheila Shanmugam, CEO of Mindshare Group Malaysia, as its newly elected President, and Ms. Vanitha Selvathurai, Partner and Head of Carat, as its Vice President at the Association’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on 24th May 2024.

Sheila Shanmugam brings over 20 years of experience in the media industry to her new role in MSA. Sheila emphasized the core mission of the MSA, saying, “Our goal is to support the industry growth by promoting best practices, fostering innovation, and advocating for favourable policies. The MSA serves as a pivotal organization dedicated to advancing the interests of media and communications agencies. It advocates for industry standards, such as the Single TV Audience Measurement (STAM) initiative, Single Out of Home measurements, and guidelines to improve media pitching processes.”

“The association also focuses on raising the bar through initiatives like the annual MSA Awards. In the new term, we are aiming to include more dialogue with marketers, industry leaders, technology partners and agencies to address the ongoing and emerging challenges”.

Reflecting on her extensive career, Sheila stated, “We have seen the industry at its best and at its worst, through economic crashes and the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges demonstrated our resilience and our ability to swiftly pivot from mainstream to new-generation internet platforms. As an active MSA member, I understand the critical issues faced by our industry, such as financial pressures, brand boycotts, currency depreciation, and brain drain.”

In addition to Sheila and Vanitha, the newly elected office bearers include K. Sivanathan, Chairman & Co-Founder of Trapper Media, as Treasurer, and Mayank Bhatnagar, Managing Director of OMD, as Secretary. The Council is represented by local and international agencies – Ampersand Advisory, Invictus Blue, Initiative Media, iProspect Malaysia, PHD Media, Starcom, Wavemaker and Yellow Paper Plane.