Polycom, Inc., a global leader in open standards-based unified communications and collaboration, announced the appointments of two new Presidents, Michael Alp as President of the Asia Pacific region and Damian Artt as President of the Americas that includes both North America and CaLA (Caribbean and Latin America).
Alp and Artt will be responsible for leading the sales strategy and execution in their respective geographies, to help drive the next phase of growth and opportunities for Polycom. Both bring wealth of leadership and transformational growth experience to Polycom and are driven to accelerate video collaboration adoption and fuel new growth opportunities
Michael Alp brings to Polycom experience and expertise across hardware, infrastructure, and application software, and has been responsible for leading aggressive growth plans for major technology companies throughout Asia Pacific and Japan. Alp joins Polycom from technology and cloud computing firm EMC Corporation, where he was most recently Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan for the Backup and Recovery Systems business based out of Hong Kong. He was previously Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, for Data Domain. Alp holds a BA in Politics and Psychology from the University of Adelaide. He takes over the reins from Hansjoerg Wagner, who recently retired from Polycom after serving in the role for more than six years.
Polycom has significant presence in Asia Pacific, with multiple offices in Australia, China, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of South East Asia.
Navin brings many years of highly relevant experience to his new position at Inmarsat. He has been a senior official within the Indian Government’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and held a senior executive posts with ICO Global, a global telecommunications company. Navin currently serves as a non-executive Board Member of Telkom South Africa and an International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Special Adviser for Emergency Communications.
In October 2012, Navin was presented with the only individual award by ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré at the ITU’s first Humanitarian Awards ceremony.
Reitmeier is Senior Vice President of Advanced Technology at NBCUniversal, leading the company’s technical efforts related to industry standards, government policy, advanced engineering and anti-piracy technical operations.
Reitmeier is widely recognized as a pioneer of digital television. He spent 25 years in digital video research at Sarnoff Labs, where he led the development of one of the original digital HDTV system proposals. He played a leading role in the formation of the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance and the development of its best-of-the-best system that culminated in the ATSC Digital Television standard. Since joining NBC in 2002, Reitmeier was involved in the creation of NBC’s first high-definition cable channel, Universal-HD, launching DTV multicast programming, the creation of mobile broadcasting and the Dyle joint venture, and the distribution of NBCUniversal content to new digital consumer devices.
Reitmeier previously served on the ATSC Board of Directors from 2004 – 2009 and as its Chairman from 2006 – 2009. He is also a board member of the North American Broadcasters Association, a contributor to TV Everywhere standards as President of the Open Authentication Technology Committee and a contributor to the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem work on the UltraViolet digital ecosystem.
He is a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and is a recipient of the Society’s Progress Medal and the Leitch Gold Medal. In 2012, he received the National Association of Broadcasters Television Engineering Award for lifetime achievement. He is also a charter member of the (Consumer Electronics Association’s Academy of Digital Television Pioneers and received Broadcasting and Cable Magazine’s coveted Technology Leadership Award. He holds more than 50 patents in digital video technology and is recognized in the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame.
ATSC Board members for 2013 are: Mark Eyer, Sony Electronics; Richard Friedel, Fox; Kevin Gage, NAB; Ira Goldstone, Univision: Brett Jenkins, LIN Media; Jim Kutzner, PBS; Brian Markwalter, CEA; Sam Matheny, Capitol Broadcasting/WRAL; Glenn Reitmeier, NBC Universal; Andy Scott, NCTA; Robert Seidel, CBS; Dave Siegler, COX Media Group; Peter Symes, SMPTE; John Taylor, LG Electronics USA; and Yiyan Wu, IEEE.
OANDA, a leading online trading platform, named Jesper Bruun-Olsen as Managing Director, Northeast Asia and Head of OANDA Japan, Stacey Grant-Thompson as Chief Marketing Officer, and Ms. Mich Mathews to its Board of Directors.
OANDA was the first online provider of comprehensive currency exchange information, and today the company’s OANDA Rate® data are the benchmark rates for corporations, auditing firms, and global banks.
Prior to joining OANDA, Mr. Bruun-Olsen spent 11 years at Tradeweb Japan, most recently as Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, where he successfully guided the new client acquisition strategy. He also previously served as the Chief Sales Manager at Nordea Bank AB where he was responsible for building new, and maintaining existing, client relationships with institutional investors in Asia and Europe.
In his new role, Chan will be responsible for providing overall GIS leadership for Avnet Technology Solutions, Asia Pacific and oversee the GIS application and infrastructure team in Asia. He will also assume the responsibility of driving Avnet’s operational excellence strategy in the region.
Chan has extensive experience in Asia as well as Americas and Europe, where he has held previous positions, thus, having the ability to integrate global processes sensibly with an Asian context. He used to be Vice President, IT, Asia, Building Efficiency for Johnson Controls, during which, he has been instrumental in driving business technology strategy and transformation, technology innovation, as well as the deployment of major/complex systems, including SAP internally.
Born and raised in Malaysia, Chan has been living in Hong Kong for the past 13 years. He holds an MBA in Strategy Management and a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics.
Bite, a global marketing services agency, announced the appointment of four new digital strategists across Asia Pacific to enhance Bite’s ability to deliver digital and mobile solutions for clients. The newly created positions build on Bite’s initiatives to deliver a complete line of marketing services globally, which include strategy and insight, public relations, marketing communications, creative and content, and digital and technology products and services. The new hires join a team of 20 dedicated digital and social experts in the Asia Pacific region and more than 100 worldwide. Bite recently merged with Bourne, the fast-growing UK-based creative digital marketing agency with offices in Glasgow and New York, and in recent years has acquired digital marketing, search and web development teams in Asia Pacific. The new positions include:
With more than 15 years of executive management and leadership experience in the high-tech and enterprise industry, Wyatt has served in a variety of roles with globally recognized business and technology brands.
ost recently as Global Head of Citi’s Consumer eBusiness and Mobile Technology, Wyatt led the technology teams responsible for leading-edge, high-volume, consumer-facing applications for the Internet, mobile and ATM channels for Citi’s entire consumer banking businesses globally.
Previously, Wyatt served as Senior Vice President and General Manager for Motorola Mobility’s Enterprise Business Unit where she interfaced with customers as well as representatives of the telecommunications industry around the world to create and distribute industry leading mobile enterprise products and services globally. Prior to joining Motorola, she served as Worldwide Developer Relations Director at Apple Computer and also held a variety of leadership roles at Sun Microsystems, JavaSoft and ESRI.
In his new role, Parikh will assume business and P and L responsibilities for Indochina, driving business growth through building up of effective organizations, partnerships, talent development and leveraging the capabilities of regional functional groups. Parikh will also focus on the management and development of the non-sales related functional activities, which is expected to provide strong support to the business. Parikh will report directly to Gene Hayden, vice president and general manager of sales for Emerson Network Power in Asia Pacific. Meanwhile, Prasit Puapatarakul and Quangdzung Truong, country managers of Emerson Network Power in Thailand and Emerson Network Power in Vietnam, respectively, will report to Parikh.
Parikh has over 20 years of industry experience in strategic planning, business development, pricing and business intelligence, as well as product management. He first joined Emerson in 2000 and held since a number of positions with increasing responsibilities. Prior to his promotion, John was general manager for the Enterprise Market Management Organization.
Parikh holds qualifications as a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Parikh is now based in Bangkok, Thailand with his family.
Mr Walker is RCC’s first Group CEO. His appointment follows a reorganisation in late 2012, which saw all businesses and investments consolidated into the four industry groups.
He has over 25 years of professional advisory and investment banking experience in forestry, energy, and other industries, focused on strategy consulting, M ans A advisory and financial structuring.
In 2010, he founded his own strategic and M and A advisory, Kauri Capital. Before establishing the firm, David was head of global forestry, pulp, paper and packaging advisory at Macquarie Capital and prior to that President and CEO of Poyry in Asia-Pacific, and CEO of Poyry Consulting, the world’s leading forest products industry consulting and engineering firm.
In these roles, he has led many engagements for industry and financial clients in Europe, Asia-Pacific, North and South America.
Mr Walker is a New Zealand citizen and has been based in Singapore since 1996. Before moving to Asia, he was based in Finland for 11 years. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration with Honours (BCA (Hons) 1984) from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, in Accounting and Finance, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (1990).
PropertyGuru Group, Asia’s dominant market leader for online residential and commercial property search, announced two key appointments within its Singapore B2C and B2B marketing teams to augment its recent business wins and sustained growth.
Havas Worldwide, formerly known as Euro RSCG Worldwide, a leading integrated marketing communications agency, has been appointed by Pizza Hut Hong Kong as its creative agency of record for all offline communications concerning the dine-in business. The expansion of their current partnership enables Havas to adopt a holistic approach to building the brand.
Leveraging its expertise in brand management and diverse experience in digital communications, Havas will assist Pizza Hut in establishing a solid digital platform for engaging with customers and reinforcing its new brand positioning. Havas’ digital tasks will include managing Pizza Hut Hong Kong’s Facebook page and launching interactive initiatives via social media.
Actuate Corporation, the people behind BIRT® and the leader in open source Business Intelligence (BI), announced BIRT Analytics™, a visual data mining and predictive analytics product that dramatically streamlines sophisticated data analysis and puts it in the hands of business users.
BIRT Analytics provides analysts and business users with agility and advanced functionality to make better and more timely decisions in an age of Big Data by providing them with an intuitive, managed self-service environment for getting their answers. BIRT Analytics is the latest addition to ActuateOne®, Actuate’s BIRT-based suite of commercial products, enabling users across the organization to participate in improving vital business processes.
Vserv.mobi, a leading global mobile advertising network, started the year with the launch of AudiencePro, a first-of-its kind platform that presents a game changing opportunity for the entire mobile ecosystem, including Telecom providers, Advertisers, Publishers and App Developers.
The AudiencePro platform allows advertisers targeting based on demographics, spending power, network usage, location, content relevance & device specific data, to reach the right audience. Besides, it allows reaching mobile subscribers with highly relevant ads, displayed on multiple inventory sources across the Vserv.mobi network, including 20,000+ Apps powered by its innovative AppWrapper technology, thus enabling targeted advertising at a massive scale like never before. The platform will support all creative formats including rich media formats such as Full Screen Ads, Video and HTLM5 interactive ads.
During the launch, the first Telco partnership has been announced as well as Vserv signed up with Airtel, the world’s third largest telecom operator by subscriber base.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130111/588484 )
LEWIS PR has announced a new global expansion plan that includes the opening of ten new offices over the next two years, with a focus on key growth countries, including BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and MIST (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey) regions.
In parallel with the ’10 Offices Plan’, the employee-owned agency has recently launched a number of initiatives to drive organic and inorganic growth across the globe. This includes acquisitions, senior recruitment and additions to its global services portfolio.
The key goal, to open 10 new offices within the next two years, is already underway with this month’s launch of LEWIS Bangalore. Under the leadership of Cijo Mathew the Indian office strengthens the agency’s fast-growing presence in Asia Pacific, where LEWIS already has offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
The recruitment for new leadership positions for these offices is already underway. LEWIS expects to announce at least two more new offices in the current quarter.
InMobi, the leader in mobile-first technology platforms, announced the acquisition of Overlay Media, which comprises of a team of data scientists that have built the Context Engine technology to deliver personalised content to mobile users. The team will be based at the InMobi London EMEA HQ.
