FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APPIES announces Chief Judge and Advisory Council
Singapore, July 7 2014 – The APPIES 2014 today announced the appointment of Sridhar Ramaswamy, Director of Retail Marketing of Lenovo, as the Chief Judge for the annual Asia Pacific Marketing Congress.
Sridhar heads marketing and retail for Lenovo’s Mobile Business Unit for Asia Pacific. In his current role, he leads brand strategy and execution across all Lenovo’s mobile products. He brings over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and branding across the Asia Pacific region for leading technology brands.
“In my role at the world’s number one PC maker and an emerging global brand in mobile devices, I’m always thinking about how we can break through in terms of innovative ways to engage our audiences and build true advocates for our brand. This same quest has driven me in my nearly four years of association with the APPIES. I have been constantly inspired by how the APPIES have led the drive to the next level of creativity and marketing effectiveness. The quality of work showcased is amazing, as is the passion of the marketers.”
The APPIES recognises and honours the best in marketing communications from campaigns across the Asia Pacific region. It brings together the brightest minds in the industry to celebrate excellence, and to network and exchange knowledge.
The Advisory Council of the APPIES 2014 comprises René De Monchy, Head of Marketing, Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore (Chairman of APPIES 2014), Alvin Neo, Chief Marketing Office of Parkway Pantai, and Goh Shu Fen, Principal and Co-founder of R3. They will be tasked with selecting the Gold winners from the shortlisted entries.
“The APPIES has come to be known as the industry benchmark for successful marketing campaigns in the Asia Pacific region where you see the creativity of Ideas People come to life. The judges have the unenviable task of selecting this year’s Gold winners from what I’m sure will be a stellar list of shortlisted entries,” said René.
The APPIES 2014 is organised by the Institute of Advertising Singapore, and supported by regional parter, The Advertising Club. SingTel is the presenting sponsor, along with supporting partners Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore, BBDO Singapore, Mediacorp, Shooting Gallery, SPH, Wishing Well, and zPixel.
Conference passes are open for registration at www.appies.asia/appies-2014/appies-registration.
For further information, please contact.
Adeline Ng
Institute of Advertising Singapore
+65 6220 8382
[email protected]
ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF ADVERTISING SINGAPORE
The Institute of Advertising Singapore (IAS) was founded in 1990 with the aim to position Singapore as an internationally recognised “centre of excellence” with world class advertising professionals, international best practices and industry leading creative output. The IAS has several highly successful business platforms for the advertising and marketing communities to meet, collaborate and raise the standards of the industry as well as encourage continuous education. In 2008, the Institute of Advertising conceptualised and launched the successful World Effie Festival (WEF) and the Asia Pacific Effie Awards. The IAS has also organised the Singapore International Advertising Congress since 1998. It is the national organiser for the Singapore Advertising Hall of Fame Awards as well as the Academy of Judges (For Advertising & Marketing Awards), The Academy of Creative Directors and The Annual Wall Poster campaign for Singapore’s Most Influential Creative Directors. It also organised the Effie Singapore Awards, which is recognised worldwide as the gold standard for marketing effectiveness.
ABOUT SRIDHAR RAMASWAMY
DIRECTOR OF RETAIL MARKETING
LENOVO MOBILE BUSINESS UNIT
Sridhar Ramaswamy is the Director of Retail Marketing in Asia Pacific for Lenovo’s Mobile Business Unit. He oversees marketing and retail for across ASEAN, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, India, Japan and ANZ (Australia and New Zealand). In his current role he is responsible for marketing, retail strategy and execution for Lenovo’s mobile products. Previously he was Director of Sales & Marketing at Intel for South Asia and prior to that, Director of Marketing at Dell for South Asia. He has lived and worked across Asia – in India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Sridhar has a BA from Delhi University and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines.
ABOUT RENÉ DE MONCHY (CHAIRMAN OF APPIES 2014)
HEAD OF MARKETING
ASIA PACIFIC BREWERIES SINGAPORE
As the Head of Marketing for Asia Pacific Breweries in Singapore (APBS), René is responsible for all areas of Marketing spread across the 16 brands managed by APBS. Prior to being appointed as the Head of Marketing for APBS, René was with DB Breweries in New Zealand where he was the Consumer Marketing Manager, responsible for the full portfolio of DB’s brands which include Tui, DB Export, Monteith’s, Heineken and Tiger.
René started off his career with DB Breweries in 2002, where he held a variety of different marketing roles which included Brand Manager Innovation, Premium Marketing Manager and Consumer Marketing Manager. He also worked for Heineken in Amsterdam as the Regional Marketing Manager for Western Europe and the Americas from 2006 – 2009.
René holds a bachelors degree in Commerce from the University of Auckland, majoring in Marketing and International Business. Time permitting, he enjoys a good round of golf, is an avid All Black’s fan and enjoys time with the family.
ABOUT ALVIN NEO
CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
PARKWAY PANTAI
Alvin Neo is Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Parkway Pantai, part of Integrated Healthcare Holdings (Asia’s largest private healthcare provider, 2nd largest in the world by market capitalization). He leads the strategic/operational marketing, sales, product innovation, new business/market development, front office, customer service and call center functions for the company’s largest division.
A veteran business leader, Alvin has over 20 years of extensive marketing, strategy, innovation and start-up experience across the Asia Pacific and Europe. He has deep FMCG marketing and brand leadership roots, having worked with Proctor & Gamble, Gillette and J&J Consumer. In addition, he has done tours of duty in top-tier Strategy Consulting as a team leader with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and in Technology as Global Business Development Director with UK start-up Netdecisions. Most recently he was in Healthcare with J&J Medical Devices & Diagnostics.
Singaporean by birth, he has also lived in London, Shanghai and Jakarta. Alvin has a BBA from the National University of Singapore and completed the GMP at the Cambridge Judge School. His interests outside of work include anything outdoors (marathons, trail running, trekking), design and volunteerism.
ABOUT GOH SHU FEN
CO-FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL
R3 ASIA PACIFIC
Taking the path less expected, Shu Fen gave up biology for the world of advertising. She had over a decade of advertising and marketing at Ogilvy and M&C Saatchi, and left when M&C Saatchi was AdAge Global Agency of the year, to found R3 in 2002, a firm focused on helping clients improve ROI from their marketing.
She is a firm believer that client-agency relationships need to improve and be more accountable before brands can be built and exported from Asia. Based in Singapore, she oversees the region working closely with clients like Visa, Johnson & Johnson, and Coca-cola, playing the role of independent marketing advisor and outsourced marketing procurement for her clients.
With solid track record from Fortune 500 companies, R3 is steadily growing its client list of Asian companies such as SingTel, Telkomsel and Samsung, as they seek best practice marketing processes and a more performance driven marketing culture.
Shu Fen contributes actively to the industry as speaker, judge and facilitator of key events. She spoke at Cannes on Asian Advertising Trends, the first ever to address this emerging market.
Her more important passion are her husband and three kids, and a personal goal to match up to her mom’s legendary cooking.