Canon Wu, chief creative officer of Momentum Greater China, resigns

Wu has been working for McCann Worldgroup China for six and a half years, being the managing director and chief creative officer for its creative boutique agency Can-Create.

Wu helped to nurture Can-Create from scratch in 2006. Over the past six years, she has helped the agency to gain a sound client base of both multinational and local clients and a strong team for McCann Worldgroup in Shanghai. The client base includes, Crowne Plaza, China Telecom, the Pudong Development Bank credit card, as well as significant digital business wins like L’Oreal Paris, Maybelline New York (in collobration with MRM), Shanghai General Motors for Shanghai Expo and Ice Dew of Coca Cola. 

The agency's previous Puma Olympics launch campaign won numerous national and international awards such as the Mobius Awards and the Times International Chinese Advertising Awards.

Wu is a well-known creative veteran from Taiwan who has been working in the China ad industry for 11 years, including as the executive creative director of Ogilvy Shanghai.

Wu's resignation comes six months after the merger of Momentum and Can Create, which aimed to integrate Momentum China, the brand activation and shopper marketing discipline of McCann Worldgroup, with McCann's branding and interactive agency Luxury Box (formerly Can Create) to combine digital, branding, shopper marketing and activation capabilities within one organisation.

McCann Worldgroup China has experienced a number of other senior management changes in recent months.

In June, Ellen Hou left TBWA Greater China and joined McCann Worldgroup as chief strategic architect and culture officer, Greater China.

Reported in May, Vincent Pang, ECD of McCann Erickson Guangming Shanghai office, resigned and announced he would be leaving the agency on 30 June after six years of service to join BBDO Shanghai.

In early April, Jesse Lin, former president of DDB Group Shanghai, took up the Greater China chief executive role at McCann Worldgroup to replace TH Peng, who resigned from the agency after 18 years last year and has joined Grey as chairman and CEO of Grey Greater China.

A decade-long McCann veteran and most recently chief strategist and innovation catalyst of Greater China at McCann Worldgroup, Pratik Thakar joined Peng at Grey as executive vice-president/chief strategy and innovation officer for Greater China this April.

Also in April, MRM Worldgroup appointed John MacKay as general manager for Hong Kong, the APAC regional hub for MRM’s performance marketing service. Sherman Lee and Joanna Hou were promoted to general manager for MRM Shanghai and Beijing, respectively. Meanwhile Jason Chau, an 11-year MRM veteran and managing director of Greater China for MRM Worldgroup, resigned last October and took up the managing director role at SapientNitro China last December.

In March, McCann Healthcare Worldwide China hired Jack Wang to the newly created position of chief scientific officer for Complete Medical Group (CMG), a medical communications agency under McCann Healthcare Worldwide China. And David Shen, 11-year McCann veteran and MD of McCann Healthcare China resigned to become CEO at China Health Media in January.