Adknowledge Asia appoints Matt Sutton as CEO

Adknowledge Asia is a joint venture between Axiata and Adknowledge, and is the exclusive partner of social and video advertising technology platform, AdParlor.

Sutton moves into the new role from his previous position as senior vice president, operations for Adknowledge Asia. He will report to the board, which includes Adknowledge Inc. Global CEO Ben Legg, who has been overseeing AdParlor’s expansion across the region.

Legg said that Sutton boasts 13 years of “invaluable experience in digital advertising in Asia”, is a
“champion of programmatic and data-driven advertising” and is well positioned to lead the business.

This change will also see Damien Lavin, managing director for SEA and ANZ, promoted to chief revenue officer. Lavin will be responsible for customer acquisition and service across all of Adknowledge Asia’s offices, reporting to Sutton.

The company’s expansion plans for 2016 include doubling headcount through growth in existing markets (Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, India, the Philippines and Taiwan) as well as entering four new markets.

It currently services advertisers and agencies through its local team of 140 people in nine markets.

Sutton said that by 2018 all major advertisers are expected to be spending in excess of 50 percent of their budgets online and shifting their TV budgets to online platforms, with a 70 percent share going to the likes of Facebook, YouTube and programmatic TV.

“AdParlor is well placed to service this demand with a potent combination of direct access to these publishers, consolidated technology, exclusive data partnerships and local customer service,” he added. “I have an amazing team around me and look forward to working with them to expand into new markets, double our headcount and further consolidate our market leading position."

Miranda Dimopoulos, CEO and ambassador to SEA IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Singapore welcomed AdParlor to the market, in a statement.

“We love working with new members to increase digital understanding and showcasing the power of technology platforms,” she said. “As the IAB, we want to prove that return on investment for digital is just as easy to understand as traditional media models, to help increase digital spend to match where our consumers are spending their time, which is largely on mobile consuming video via social.”