Lion & Lion expands in SEA, invests in new hires

Looking to build on a period of solid financial results, Southeast Asian network Lion & Lion has announced a new five-year growth plan that will see them establish a new data and analytics team, an in-house content production studio in their Kuala Lumpur office, as well as make a string of new hires across Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.

“Seeing how our current product and regional delivery model are resonating with clients has given us great confidence to invest even more in the same direction,” said Fredrik Gumpel, CEO, Lion & Lion.

Explaining about their imminent growth plans, Gumpel told Campaign that they have already hired a head of production to lead the new in-house content production studio in Kuala Lumpur who will report to Cheelip Ong, regional chief creative officer.

Set to launch by the end of January 2023, the content production studio will consist of five full-time hires, including a head of production who is a film director, a videographer/editor, a film producer and two senior motion graphic designers. The production studio is being launched to service the greater demand from clients for visual content that engages.

"With an in-house video production studio that is connected to our integrated creative offerings, we can create and produce digital-first video content for current and new clients with greater efficiency, quality control and cost-effectiveness,” says Gumpel. “Thus we see all clients benefiting from this offering."

New data and analytics team

In addition to the new content production studio, Lion & Lion has announced they will be adding two types of data capabilities. One is data integration, which will look at different streams of data (campaign level, audience level, media level) and merge them to create sharper understanding and deliver insights to strategy, creative, social, media etc.

The second is data driven developments such as dashboards, performance monitors, and touchpoint maps that Gumpel hopes will not only add value to clients’ current marketing efforts, but also enable them to look for new business and marketing opportunities.  

"The new data and analytics team will be led by a head of data & insights. We still have an ongoing hiring process for this person who will drive this core capability and report into our group director for strategy, media & data, Krishna Kumar," says Gumpel. "Initially the team will have two additional supporting roles: a senior data analyst and a data architect. Later on we plan to include more data analysts as well as software developers."

Team expansion

With many of Lion & Lion's clients having a regional scope in Singapore, dedicated investment will go towards growing the agency’s team in Singapore to drive more local business and unlock long term regional growth.

"In Singapore, we primarily had a client servicing staff team, but we will now also add creative and social people, as well as additional client servicing team members," says Gumpel. "The initial round of hires will feature five new employees in our Singapore branch."

In addition to growing the Singapore team, new hires are also planned across Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.

"The first wave of hiring (out of our five-year growth plan) will be focused on Singapore and Kuala Lumpur," says Gumpel. "We have opened up five new positions in Singapore and 10 in Kuala Lumpur related to this new expansion strategy."