Xaxis promotes Arshan Saha to APAC president

Arshan Saha has been named APAC president of Xaxis, succeeding Michel de Rijk, who became APAC president of GroupM's [m]Platform upon its launch late last year.

As the former vice president of South and Southeast Asia and founding member of Xaxis APAC, Saha had helped set up offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and India.

Speaking to Campaign Asia-Pacific, Saha said Xaxis has created strong relationships with advertisers and publishers across APAC markets, but new marketplace challenges are to be expected.

"We will continue to develop proprietary technology and acquisitions that allow us to differentiate and create new competitive offerings that perform for our clients in programmable marketing," said Saha in an email response.

Xaxis is currently present in 14 markets across APAC: China, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the seven markets previously led by Saha. Globally, Xaxis acquired Triad Retail Media last year, while Light Reaction, the performance advertising business that is part of Xaxis, has been most recently launched in Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Asked about challenges in the diverse APAC market, Saha said brands from developing markets are getting smarter and more privy to the viewability benchmarks they should strive after.

"At Xaxis, we run thousands of campaigns with the best-in-class technology," he said. "This, coupled with exclusive access to inventory not available on the open market through our specialist companies and first-look agreements with premium publishers, means we are central in the education and implementation [in this area]."

Commenting on Saha's appointment, de Rijk said in a statement: "The tremendous success and growth of Xaxis has culminated in the creation of [m]Platform which we are looking forward to roll out across APAC. Arshan has played a significant role in this success with his ability to understand and navigate clients and publishers in the region."