Leo Burnett veteran Kara Yang takes up senior strategist role at Landor

Yang (pictured) will take over strategy duties from Peter Mack, who has been executive director of and strategy and marketing for Greater China for three years. Mack will now focus on marketing.

Yang is an award-winning strategist with more than 14 years of brand and communication planning experience, including more than 13 years at Leo Burnett, where her last role was executive planning director, China / Hong Kong at Leo Burnett.

Examples of her contribution at Leo Burnett, including helping the agency to win 7 Effie Awards to-date, including Leo Burnett Hong Kong’s first Gold Effie Award with a fully integrated campaign for the city’s largest telecommunications company CSL, and another Gold Effie for WWF’s “Earth Hour” campaign.

Yang working on a wide range of both consumer and corporate assignments, in addition to her P&G and Philip Morris experience, Kara’s client list also includes Kellogg, World Wildlife Fund, CSL Telecommunications, Hang Seng Bank, AIA Asia, Pfizer/Wyeth, Li-Ning Sports, and Galaxy Macau Cotai Resort.  

She also compiled numerous Global Trend Reports including a Twitter Report that demonstrated how brands are leveraging the latest social networking tools to engage consumers.

“Kara has a lot of experience in jumping into a business, getting up to speed in how the business works, as well as what will make for a differentiated and relevant positioning," Henry Chan, president of Landor’s Greater China region said, "Kara’s wide range of both consumer and corporate assignments is especially attractive to us as we service clients from a wide variety of sectors”.

Unusually for and ad agency executive, Yang is also an unusual breed of the female ad agency executive who has a BSc in Animal Biology from McGill University, and enjoys the outdoors and trekked to Mount Everest Base Camp to help raise money to build an orphanage in Nepal.

Reported back in March, Landor Associates has opened a Shanghai office, relocating its key leaders to the city it now refers to as its centre of growth gravity for the region, the agency said that Yang’s arrival completes the leadership team for Landor’s Greater China operation.

Among Landor’s clients already in Shanghai are key global clients Citi, Citroen and Kraft, as well as homegrown brands like Tsingtao and Shanghai Media Group.