McCann Malaysia's ECDs to head up Southeast Asia creative council

Co-chaired by McCann Worldgroup Malaysia executive creative directors, Ean Hwa Huang (Hwa) and Szu Lee (Szu), the council is tasked with embedding a group-wide focus on creativity with a focus on training and talent identification.

The network's Malaysia operation is one of its most successful in Southeast Asia, as the sub-region continues to build upon a restructuring late last year which saw the formation of four regional managing director roles in place of the Asia Pacific regional lead.

The change saw Michael McLaren relinquish his role as Asia-Pacific lead to head Japan and Korea. The Asia-Pacific Executive Committee also comprises Prasoon Joshi (India), TH Peng (Greater China) and Charles Cadell (Southeast Asia and Australasia).

McCann Worldgroup Singapore subsequently appointed Ben Lightfoot as CEO and recently won OCBC's advertising business.

The regional restructuring late in 2010 followed a period of flux for McCann Worldgroup in the region, with the abrupt departure of former Asia-Pacific regional director Kevin Ramsey in 2009 who was replaced by McLaren. Other departures at that time included former area director of Southeast Asia Mark Ingrouille and  former managing director of McCann Worldgroup Singapore Simon Lockyer.

Asked whether this creative council is a move toward further strengthening the sub-region, one source said the councils were part of McCann's global and regional policies, so it is simply in-line with the new sub-regional structure.

It was also suggested that the move is in order to retain Hwa and Szu who were rumoured to be looking into going out on their own. But McCann says the choice of Hwa and Szu to head the committee was due in part to the duo's long track records with the network - stretching back almost a decade.

"Co-chairmanship is natural as Szu and I have been creative partners for almost 20 years," Hwa said in an interview. "During our time at McCann we have demonstrated consistent creative ability and have proven ourselves able via creative accolades,"

Hwa agreed that creative councils were not new to McCann but said that forming a sub-regional council made sense considering the size of the China and India markets. "Grouping the smaller markets together would make the Southeast Asia and Australasia region stronger," he said.

Commenting on their appointment, Cadell said, “Szu and Hwa are award winning creatives who by working with colleagues across the Worldgroup companies, McCann Erickson, MRM and Momentum, will increase the volume of collaboration and award winning work we produce."

The first gathering of the council will take place in August in Kuala Lumpur.