DAN seeks more acquisitions to grow performance business

ASIA-PACIFIC - Earlier this week, Dentsu Aegis Network appointed ex-Google China executive Tony Chen as CEO of iProspect China, CEO of digital-performance brands North Asia and chief innovation officer, China, as the group aims to go beyond search marketing, seeking acquisition partners in China, Taiwan and South Korea.  

“My agenda is to make iProspect the leading performance agency in China,” Chen told Campaign Asia-Pacific. “This means making sure we offer much more than search and delivering a more holistic view for our clients. I’m also looking to scale ahead of our competition and will be for local performance partners.”

As CEO of iProspect China, Shanghai-based Chen will continue to broaden the performance portfolio for the group. As CEO of digital performance brands North Asia, he is charged with establishing and developing additional global and regional performance brands in Mainland China, Taiwan and South Korea.

In March, DAN acquired China-based Darwin Marketing Limited and integrated the agency with iProspect. According to the firm, the acquisition doubled iProspect’s China headcount to 150 and added scale in its search and performance-marketing services.

Chen will directly report to Phil Teeman, group managing director of Dentsu Aegis Network China, Ruth Stubbs, CEO of digital performance brands Asia Pacific, and Motohiro Yamagishi, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network China.

At Google, Chen was responsible for the performance business in China. “That’s something I hope to leverage here," he said. "This role is bigger than what I was doing at Google and gives me greater opportunity to showcase what we can offer while giving me greater exposure to the region.”