Ed Thesiger takes over from Ranjana Singh at GroupM Indonesia

Ed Thesiger will begin in Jakarta on 16 January, and will take full responsibility for all aspects of the business in Indonesia.

Ranjana Singh, current GroupM Indonesia CEO, takes on two newly-created roles with immediate effect, becoming both GroupM Chairwoman for Indonesia and WPP Country Chairwoman for Indonesia and Vietnam.

“I am delighted to be re-joining the WPP network, and GroupM in particular, which has consistently been achieving tremendous results globally,” said Thesiger who moves from being marketing director of GSK Southeast Asia, based in Malaysia. There, he helped the business achieve double digit growth across the portfolio of brands, including Ribena, Horlicks, Panadol and Sensodyne

Thesiger is excited about being back with an agency noting “the Asian agencies are far more dynamic than those based in London”.

The continuing growth in the use of social media was a major factor in Thesiger’s move to Indonesia. He points to the country as having the second largest number of Facebook users globally and fourth highest number of Twitterers. “Social media is immense in Indonesia, as is mobile use. In a country with a population of 240 million, the opportunities are huge,” he said.

“As a high growth market, Indonesia is on everyone’s radar, with the proliferation of digital combined with a local culture based on friendliness, curiosity and togetherness,” Thesiger added.

Mark Patterson CEO, GroupM Asia-Pacific, said of the appointment, “Ed represents another manifestation of our desire and policy of bringing in high-calibre talent with diverse experience into our businesses in the region. This is a very exciting time for us and our clients and our media partners in Indonesia.”

Reflecting on Singh’s tenure, Patterson noted, “Ranjana is unique. A world-class leader’s leader. She now has the opportunity to broaden her impact and influence with her new responsibilities and the beauty of her promotion is that we at GroupM still get to leverage her skills, experience and relationships.”

Singh, who has been in Indonesia for almost nineteen years said, “The last eleven years have been the most exciting and rewarding years for me professionally. I am confident that Ed, my successor, will be pleased with the very strong team in place, across all the agencies and that GroupM will continue to scale even greater heights.”

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, offered praise for the outgoing CEO, “Ranjana has done a fantastic job in building GroupM Indonesia into not only the leading agency group in Indonesia but one of GroupM's strongest operations globally. We look forward to her lending her considerable expertise and experience across WPP to accelerate the growth of all areas of our business in both Indonesia and Vietnam.”

In May 2011, Patterson announced Group M's intentions to further invest in Indonesia and that the network was looking to make some senior appointments in that market.