Hoffman Agency names APAC MD

The Hoffman Agency has appointed Caroline Hsu, most recently chief marketing officer at Appier, as APAC managing director, based in Hong Kong.

Prior to Appier, Hsu was head of communications for Google Taiwan and Hong Kong. She has also led marketing communications at TomTom Asia and Dopod (now HTC), as well as brand communications at BenQ.

She succeeds Cassandra Cheong, who is moving back to Singapore and her own consulting practice. The company credited Cheong with double-digit APAC growth last year as part of a record year in which the company's APAC offices (China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Singapore) accounted for half of the agency's US$11.3 million in global revenue.

"My passion is to take Asian brands to the global stage, and at The Hoffman Agency I’ll be responsible for helping even more Asian brands build their reputations regionally and globally," Hsu said. The agency is well positioned to help Silicon Valley startups tell their stories to the Asian audience, not just provide PR services, she said, adding that she sees "tremendous opportunities" in multi-market campaigns.

The agency anticipates increasing entrepreneurial activity in Asia, and Hsu's startup knowledge, "not just from a communications perspective but what goes into pushing the boulder up the mountain", will be a key to capturing this opportunity, said Lou Hoffman, global CEO. "Caroline’s client-side experience will accelerate our push into campaigns that address business pain points as opposed to generating media clips," he added. "She knows these pain points because she lived them."

Hsu said she sees particular opportunities in market synergies among multiple markets in Asia, such as Greater China, North Asia and Southeast Asia, "as well as new brands and tech startups expanding their business from Asia to US and Europe, and vice versa".