UPDATED: Hootsuite expands in Asia-Pacific, Ken Mandel named MD

Based in Singapore, Mandel is now responsible for HootSuite's regional growth strategy and expansion with enterprise customers.

HootSuite's expansion into Asia-Pacific is on the back of a round of VC funding totaling US$165 million in August. Its enterprise clients include the Australian Red Cross, Jetstar Airways, and the City of Sydney. HootSuite is also used by Virgin, PepsiCo, Sony Music, FOX, and 744 of the Fortune 1000 companies.

According to Mandel, while HootSuite has had representatives in Hong Kong and Sydney, the office in Singapore represents its first real push in the region, and the company plans to build a full-range of operations including business development and support. 

To date, HootSuite has 53 Asia-Pacific-based enterprise customers, representing a 20 per cent increase in growth this quarter. The company plans to aggressively ramp up its presence in the region, focusing on Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Australia.

Although certainly not the first social-media-management platform in Asia, Mandel believes HootSuite is sufficiently unique to thrive. "It's flexible and appeals to a wider audience base including enterprise, SMEs, pro-users and regular users," he explained. 

The Canadian company's flexibility comes from its app store which allows third-parties to build apps that integrate into HootSuite so in addition to the major social media platforms, marketers can opt to have smaller or highly local platforms on HootSuite. "The ability to have Mixi, Tencent Weibo or RenRen on HootSuite, combined with its language capabilities, makes it very tailored for Asia."

Mandel left Salesforce Marketing Cloud earlier this year "to pursue other opportunities". Prior to joining HootSuite, Mandel was managing director, Salesforce Marketing Cloud for Asia-Pacific, and before that he was Buddy Media's first hire in the region. Mandel led Buddy Media's growth in the region until it was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2012.

Before that Mandel was Yahoo's regional vice-president for Asia-Pacific, during which time he launched the platform in four new markets and monetised its product line. His previous experiences also includes building up Neo@Ogilvy as well as JWT XM as Asia-Pacific CEO. 

"Ken's 20 years of leadership experience in the APAC region adds tremendous value to our current expansion," says Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite. "He is a skilled business leader with passion about the convergence of marketing and technology."