Bates continues to ramp up in region

Reporting to Jakarta-based Southeast Asia CEO Shubho Sarkar, Latiff joins from TBWA/ISC Malaysia where she was group account director, leading the work on Tourism Malaysia, Malaysian Palm Oil Council, Sarawak Tourism Board and the DIGI telco businesses, as well as new business pitches for ING, Proton and Bank Negara.

During her time with TBWA, the Tourism Malaysia campaign won multiple Golds including at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards, Pacific Asia Travel Association Annual Awards, and ITB Berlin.

From 2001 to 2007, Nor worked at local and international agencies including CD Communications Group, Naga DDB and Dentsu Utama.

Prior to that, Latiff was managing director of Articulate Television where she was instrumental in uplifting the profile of Articulate Television, and had successfully produced award-winning television programs that were screened both locally and in the Asia Pacific region.

Describing Latiff as “exactly the kind of Change Agent bates wants to attract” chairman of Bates Asia Pacific Tim Isaac said Latiff  has a track record of running successful businesses, “She has the fire and risk-taking mentality to lead our Malaysia office on an aggressive growth track.

Shubho added that she comes onboard at an exciting time, as bates reaffirms its commitment to apply change insights to create new ways of engagement in today’s world where consumer conversations define brands,” added Shubho.

Bates recently rebranded, dropping the 141 and adopting a new changengage philosophy.

The network's flagship Singapore office has gone from strength to strength this year since the appointment of John Ng as managing director and Patrick Leclerq as chief strategist. Since then the agency has won a number of new accounts including Walt Disney Studios and Singapore Polytechnic, as well as Diageo's Smirnoff in Vietnam and Ultra Jaya Mimi in Indonesia.