R/GA Shanghai hires new MD and ECD after leadership hiatus

R/GA Shanghai has appointed Sook Ping Chow as managing director and Terence Leong as executive creative director.

Chow replaces Wong Kian Fong, who moved on in April 2017 to iSentia China to look after its social intelligence business. Since Fong’s departure, Christer Eriksson, regional managing director for strategy, has served as acting MD while based in Singapore. Eriksson will now return to his former role as regional planning director, according to the agency. 

Chow has 20 years of pan-Asian industry experience in agencies including M&C Saatchi, Leo Burnett, TBWA, Wieden+Kennedy and, most recently, Factory Design Labs, whose Shanghai office she launched and built as MD.

Chow highlighted the "agility" and "level of network collaboration" of R/GA's 2,000 global colleagues as a key attraction to the new role. She will report to Jim Moffatt, EVP and APAC managing director.

“[Chow] has a keen strategic mind,” said Moffatt. “She’s also equal parts grit and humour, so I can think of no better person to drive us forward here and look forward to working with her.”

Leong was most recently creative director at Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai. He will report to Chow, and work closely with Bob Mackintosh, who stepped up to the regional role of VP and APAC ECD. 

“Nothing focuses the mind like jumping out of a plane, and happily for us, [Leong] used to be a paratrooper,” said Mackintosh. “His ability to dive straight to the heart of any matter produces ideas that are authentic and meaningful.”

Leong added that R/GA Shanghai stands out for him "as an agency that doesn’t just move at the speed of culture but seeks to create it".