THEME: Creative Effectiveness for Good

MATT EASTWOOD
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer
J. Walter Thompson

Matt joined J. Walter Thompson as Worldwide Chief Creative Officer in July 2014. Described by Britain's Campaign magazine as a "unicorn" in the communications industry, Matt has overseen some of the most innovative and recognizable creative projects in advertising today. His career has spanned numerous agencies, specialties and countries, including Australia, the UK and US. Matt was a founding partner of M&C Saatchi in Australia before he went on to join DDB Australia as National Creative Director and Vice Chairman. In 2010 he moved to DDB New York as Chief Creative Officer. And in AdAge's 2013 Awards Report, Matt was listed as the 5th most-awarded Chief Creative Officer worldwide. In 2016, Matt led J. Walter Thompson to a historic year at Cannes, winning a total of 80 Lions – more than the agency had ever won in their 150-year history. Most excitingly, J. Walter Thompson moved from 14th to 7th most-awarded network at Cannes, making the agency one of the “biggest movers” at Cannes in 2016. During his career, Matt has won numerous accolades and honors, including Campaign Brief Agency of the Year, Australian Creative Hotshop, AdNews Agency of the Year, Creativity's Agency to Watch, B&T Agency of the Year, Spikes Network of the Year, and Campaign magazine Network of the Year. He is a highly awarded creative with an international sensibility, living life as a New Yorker.

THIERRY HALBROTH
Managing Partner & ECD
Publicis Hong Kong

Surfer, husband, father and DJ (in no particular order), Thierry is first and foremost an award-winning creative head. Homeless for most of his life, Thierry has spent the last 24 years in Asia Pacific, living and working in Bangkok, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Hong Kong, and travelling through many cities in between. As Managing Partner and Executive Creative Director of Publicis Hong Kong, Thierry is tasked with managing Publicis Hong Kong’s operations and overseeing the overall creative output of the office on all its major clients. This include AXA and Renault where he also serves as their Asia Pacific creative lead, working hand-in-hand with creative teams locally and regionally. His objectives: transform Hong Kong into a preferred hub to help lead the change for Publicis global clients, building a strong office able to deliver best-practice strategy, creative and brand management. Prior to joining Publicis, Thierry spent 10 years with McCann Worldgroup, eight of these on Cathay Pacific Airways, growing from Digital Senior Creative Director to Global Executive Creative Director in charge of 27 countries worldwide, and two as Executive Creative Director and de facto Asia Pacific creative head of Commonwealth//McCann’s Bangkok – McCann’s dedicated agency of record for General Motors/Chevrolet. International jury duties aside, his support of the advertising industry is vast, and over the years he has contributed his spare time and efforts to the development and promotion of ADMA (Asian Digital Marketing Association) and, to the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents of Hong Kong (HK4As) as Chairman of its Digital and Interactive Committee, as well as its Creative Committee for several years. Thierry is also a guest lecturer at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Despite his nomadic pattern, Thierry calls Hong Kong home and, at 14 years, the city he’s spent the most time in.

KENTARO KIMURA
Co-CEO & ECD
Hakuhodo Kettle, Tokyo

Kentaro loves to cross borders. In his younger years, he backpacked through over 35 countries. Not be surprised, after joining Hakuhodo in 1992 he established a unique planning and creative style that eliminates the boundaries of strategic, creative, digital, and PR and works seamlessly through the entire process. He established Hakuhodo Kettle, a one of a kind creative agency in 2006. Truly innovative ideas can come from anywhere. For this reason, everyone at his company is familiar with every field of communication. Bubbling up and serving his clients new ideas, his goal is for Hakuhodo Kettle to set the whole world aboil. Kentaro has won more than 100 awards including 8 Grand Prix in various international advertising festivals such as Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, Clio, London, ADC, Adfest, Adstars, and Spikes Asia with Sony, Google, Shiseido, Toyota, and Suntory and other more. He has served as a member of more than 20 jury teams including Cannes Promo Jury, Titanium & Integrated Jury, Promo & Direct Jury president at Adfest, Degital &Mobile Jury president at Spikes Asia, and Executive Jury at New York Festivals. He was the official speaker at Cannes lions in 2013, 2014, and 2015.

MERLEE JAYME
Chairmom & Chief Creative Officer
Dentsu Jayme Syfu

Merlee is the first Filipino to be awarded: The Creative of the Year for Southeast Asia in the Campaign Asia Pacific Agency of the Year. Working as a creative for 27 years, she has also been recognized with The HALL OF FAME AWARD from the Creative Guild of the Philippines and the NEW YORK FESTIVALS CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. She is "Chairmom" and Chief Creative Officer of Dentsu Jayme Syfu and the only woman in the 20 top creative directors in ASIA as reported by Campaign brief Asia last year. Featured as one of CNN’s Leading Women in 2015, she has been awarded CEO of the Year 2016 by the IABC Philippines. Her speaking engagements include “Changing the World through Media” at the IAA Global Leadership Forum in London, “Hard Sell and Heart Sell” at the AdStars Festivals in Busan, Korea and “Gender Equality” in advertising at the SPIKES ASIA in Singapore. Last year, she spoke about the “World’s favorite target market: MOTHERS” at the Lions Health in Cannes, France and was the jury president for the CLIOs in the Direct/engagement/experiential category. This year, she is D&AD’s forewoman for the Press Category. She recently launched her first book “Everyone Can Be Creative”: A handbook that encourages everyone to discover and nurture his/her own creativity. In just one year, her newly integrated agency Dentsu Jayme Syfu has been awarded the 2016 Creative Agency of the Year for the Philippines by Campaign Asia. Lastly, she’s proud of breaking the glass ceiling for women in this mad men’s world.

RUPEN DESAI
Executive Vice Chairman
Edelman Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa

Rupen Desai is the Executive Vice Chairman for Edelman across Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APACMEA). He supports APACMEA and the regional team in building & partnering with brands that are social at heart, earned centric and are, thus intelligently promoted. He is also a board member at Female Founders, a not-for-profit dedicated to the pursuit of gender equality in entrepreneurship. A strong advocate of the impact purpose & creativity has on society as well as businesses; Rupen has two decades of experience in leading multicultural teams that shape brand narratives for some of the world’s most famous, consistent & successful brands. Before Edelman, Rupen was the Regional President for the Lowe + Partners network across Asia Pacific for 6 years during which the network became a top performer across Creative and Effectiveness awards. He is proud of having led teams on work that has been awarded in numerous global & regional shows like Cannes, New York Advertising Festival, Effie’s, LIA Festival, Clio, AME’s, Spikes and Dubai Lynx amongst others. His passions, apart from his love for his family, are books, his dog and the beach. He continues, unsuccessfully, to try and learn to sail.

CELEVEL BUTLER
Managing Director Integrated Brand, SEA
Edelman Singapore

Celevel is the Managing Director of Integrated Brand at Edelman Singapore, where she has the responsibility for the vision, strategy and operations of the Brand practice and collaborate with the digital, strategic planning and creative teams to further Edelman’s Singapore’s integrated marketing offer. A strong supporter of sustainability and community work, she has organised several fund-raising events in Singapore to support schools and education related projects in the Philippines and Africa. Celevel also makes herself available to teams of young talent from Singapore’s Ngee Ann Polytechnic in providing real life work experience and coaching in their brand building module since 2009. With two decades of award-winning work in creativity and effectiveness, she has always been a strong advocate of integrated campaigns that fused creativity and technology. And as General Manager at Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore for seven years, prior to joining Edelman, she personally worked and lead the teams on work worthy of Cannes Lion, Effie’s, Clio, AME’s and Spikes amongst others. Celevel embraces the popular adage ‘work hard and play harder’. Her passion, energy and optimism has always served her well in balancing the demands of work and family commitments.

PAOLO MERCADO
SVP for Marketing, Communication & Innovation
Nestlé Philippines

Paolo is Nestlé Philippines’ Senior Vice President for Marketing, Communication, and Innovation. He was formerly Head of Marketing & Consumer Communication for Nestlé Greater China Region. During his tenure in China, one of the most challenging and dynamic consumer markets in the world, Paolo helped establish Nestlé as one of China’s leading companies in digital and social media marketing.

VIKAS MEHTA
Group CMO & President Marketing Services
MullenLowe Lintas Group

Vikas has worked with the global MullenLowe Group since 2006 in various leadership roles. He’s lived in India, VietNam and Singapore; and managed agencies|businesses across 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. He moved to India in 2013 to head marketing for MullenLowe Lintas Group as the first CMO in Indian advertising. Named President, Marketing Services in 2015 by the group, he runs - A full service digital agency – LinTeractive, - An experiential marketing agency – LinEngage, - India’s leading PR agency – GolinOpinion, - A brand consulting firm - LinConsult Champion of an ‘omni-channel’ approach to building brands, Vikas believes in ‘marketing for a digitised world’ more than ‘digital marketing’. Papers authored by Vikas have won over 100 regional and global awards on marketing effectiveness including numerous ‘agency of the year’ titles. Prior to joining MullenLowe Group, he has worked with Publicis and Leo Burnett.

CHARLES CADELL
President and CEO, McCann Worldgroup Japan
President, McCann Worldgroup Asia-Pacific

Charles Cadell moved to Singapore in early 2011 to join McCann Worldgroup and oversee a region that has some of the fastest-growing markets in the world, and one that he has become very familiar with during the last two decades that he has been working across the Asia Pacific region. In 2016, he relocated his base to take on additional responsibilities as president and CEO of McCann Worldgroup Japan in addition to his role as President of McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific. Charles started his career with Leo Burnett in London and is part Englishman and New Zealander.

NICOLAS MENAT
Chief Executive Officer, Asia
Publicis One

Nicolas Menat started his career at Havas in 1987, after graduating from a business school in Paris. He then joined Leo Burnett France (today, part of the Publicis Groupe) in 1989, and had since built his career within the Publicis Groupe spending 11 years in Paris, 2 years in Chicago, and 3 years in Frankfurt prior to coming to Tokyo in 2005. Nicolas worked on a broad range of international clients such as Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Diageo, L’Oréal, AXA, Sanofi, among many others. In January 2007, Nicolas was appointed President, Representative Director of beacon communications in Tokyo; a fully integrated agency with 300+ people, partnership between Publicis Groupe (66%) and Dentsu (34%). In January 2016, Nicolas was appointed CEO of Publicis One in Asia (Japan, Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam). Publicis One is Global Creative Enterprise unifying all of Publicis Groupe agency brands and assets under one roof and one leadership, in each country. Recognising the demands for specialization and integration, it’s built with clients’ needs at the center and strives to be the top integrator of best-in-class specialists.

GONZALO FUENTES
Global CEO Media & Digital Practice
Kantar Insights

Gonzalo, a Spanish graduated Sociologist, started his marketing consultancy career in an independent Spanish firm in 1994. Since then Gonzalo has worked around the world and leading the expansion of Kantar Millward Brown in South East Asia, as well as Latin America. More recently Gonzalo has been working closely with clients to drive decisions in an increasingly complex digital media environment. A believer in going beyond simple “performance” measures, he has continued to place brands at the center of the digital efforts.

JOAKIM BORGSTROM
Chief Creative Officer
BBH Singapore

Joakim Borgström - better known as JAB - has worked in the advertising industry for nearly 20 years. After two years at BBH London, he recently moved to BBH Singapore to be the new Executive Creative Director. Prior to BBH, Jab held a number of leadership roles, including Creative Director/Director of Innovation at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam, Creative Director and Partner at DoubleYou, Barcelona. Jab is a rare mix of Swedish and Argentinean, speaks five languages and has worked in five countries to date. He has worked on brands as diverse as Nike, Audi, Electronic Arts, Coca-Cola, Google, Doritos, Barclays, Heineken, Chevrolet and on recent award-winning campaigns at BBH for Mentos, The Guardian and Samsung. Jab is the winner of over 170 awards that include 20 One Show pencils, 11 Cannes Lions and a Cannes Grand Prix. He’s sat on the jury of 20+ award shows and is a sought-after speaker in the industry.

TAY GUAN HIN
GLOBAL ECD
J. Walter Thompson

As a student, Guan was called into the principal’s office many times because he drew comic characters all over his textbooks. One day, a teacher realized his potential and encouraged his parents, both doctors, to abandon their dream of medical school for their son and instead, let him pursue his real passion. That turn of events sparked a successful career. Right after he graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, he surprised himself by winning the Best of Show in the LA Creative Student Competition. That win helped him land a job with one of the most successful independent west coast agencies - Kresser/Craig. Guan later returned to Singapore and worked in several creative hot shops, including Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett, before taking a regional role at Grey Worldwide. Later, he joined JWT as Regional ECD of SEA and was later promoted to the role of Global ECD for blue chip brands like Unilever’s Lux, Shell, Abbott and Johnson & Johnson, Listerine (AP). In 2012, Guan’s team brought home numerous awards for their work on Lux, including a Grand Prix in radio from Spikes. In 2010, he became the first Singaporean to serve as a Cannes Outdoor jury president. He was also the first Asian to serve as a D&AD jury foreman in the poster category, and was the second Asian to ever chair a CLIO jury, where he led the jury for print, poster, innovative media and integrated campaigns. Guan devotes the same passion and energy that goes into his work into mentoring young talents in Asia. Guan was instrumental in setting up the Singapore Crowbar Awards, AdFest’s Young Lotus, and the Award School Asia, which foster budding talents in this region. He organized Portfolio Night and leads JWT Asia Pacific’s on-the-ground effort as part of the agency’s annual sponsorship of Young Spikes. In 2012, he chaired the Singapore’s Young Cannes Creative Competition and for the first time, the young team brought home a gold, Singapore’s first ever Young Cannes Lion to date. Guan continues to hunt for his high school teacher on Facebook to thank her.

ALI REZ
Regional CD, Middle East, Pakistan
Impact BBDO

Ali Rez - ranked amongst the top 15 creative directors and top 10 art directors in the world by the 2015 Advertising Big Won report - is one of the most awarded creative directors in the Middle Eastern and South Asian region. He has won more than 100 advertising awards in his career which include Cannes Gold Lions, D&AD pencils, Clios, Effies, One Show, LIA, and Grand Prix at AdStars and Dubai Lynx, amongst many others. Ali’s creative experience has contributed to BBDO being named Network of the Year by Campaign MENA, while his work led BBDO Pakistan to be named Agency of the Year for 2015 and 2016 by Campaign Brief and the Big Won report. Ali’s campaigns brought home the first Gold Lion for Pakistan, won the only Gold Outdoor 2015 Clio in all of Asia, and led the agency to its first Grand Prix wins at Dubai Lynx, Cristals, AdStars and MENA digital awards. Ali’s work has been celebrated beyond advertising shows, and has been displayed in museums which include the Tate UK and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Netherlands. He has been selected as a member of the jury at Clios, Effies, Spikes and AdStars, while his recent artistic work against drone warfare - the 6th most awarded outdoor in the world in 2015 - was met with great acclaim globally, and has led Ali to speak at TedX and several prestigious universities - including being invited to lecture at the University of Oxford.

DOMINIC STALLARD
Chief Creative Officer
Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore

After trading in his spray can to become a designer for Disney, Dominic joined advertising 25 years ago. He has since worked all over the world, earning a reputation for his infectious enthusiasm for ideas, and the people who come up with them. In 2003, he left advertising, to become an awarded commercials director for 3 years. Since returning, he has overseen global and regional accounts, and the creative departments of agencies across Asia and the Middle East. He has won Golds at every major creative and effectiveness award show, and 2016 award wins include The One Show’s first ever PR Grand Prix, Gold Cannes Lions, and Number 1 Print Campaign in the World (Big Won). However, his biggest professional achievement was leading a team to come up with a country’s national anthem. He lives near the sea with his wife and son, and his vintage skateboard collection.

MICHAEL KNOX
Chief Creative Officer
Grey Hong Kong

Michael Knox is Chief Creative Officer of Grey Group Hong Kong. Over the years Michael’s work has been recognised at all major award shows, including recent Gold at Cannes Lions, New York Festivals and Spikes Asia. In the last 12 months Michael has led campaigns that have collected multiple Effies locally and internationally. His work includes highly effective behavioral change campaigns for Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission and innovative education and awareness initiatives for Multiple Sclerosis Australia. Prior to relocating to Hong Kong, Michael was Chief Creative Officer Grey Group Australia and Managing Partner of Grey, Melbourne. This experience allowed Michael to spend time shaping the agency’s culture and to focus on the broader vision of the business. This opportunity reaffirming his opinion regarding the importance of purpose and the role it plays in culture, people and product. Michael is a member of Grey’s Global Creative Council, and has judged at numerous local and international award shows and has mentored some of the best talent in the business. A fact of which he’s most proud.