McCann expands its regional team

McCann has named Richard Newman (pictured) to the newly created position of regional chief growth officer. Formerly the global commercial director of Contagious Magazine, he will lead the agency’s growth strategy across this region, with consumer expenditure expected to reach US$1.5 trillion by 2020.

Charles Cadell, regional managing director of McCann Worldgroup Southeast Asia and Australasia, noted that Newman’s passion and new age communication bias helped build Contagious magazine into one of the world’s most respected forward-thinking companies around.

The network has also picked Kalpana Sinha as senior VP of talent and organisation for McCann Worldgroup Asia-Pacific.

She was most recently with Microsoft India as director of people and organisation capability, a role in which she focused on senior leadership development, talent management and organisation development.

Jane Fraser, meanwhile, has joined McCann Worldgroup as regional corporate communications director, replacing Rachel Faulker who returns London with her family. Prior to the agency, she was with Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific for almost six years, working across the network regionally.

Last month, McCann Worldgroup Indonesia continued to see hiring spree, with Berndt Soderbom being appointed as its president director.

The newly-created position was effective last Monday (3 October), and is understood to replace Michelle Ong, managing director at McCann Worldgroup Indonesia.

Ong will be resigning from the position for family reasons in December to return to her home country of Malaysia. She was appointed to her position in June last year, following the departure of Indonesia managing director Somyot Chairat.