Moves and wins roundup: Week of March 3, 2025

TikTok Australia and New Zealand general manager Brett Armstrong and marketing lead Denny Handling are leaving the social media company, according to Australian media coverage. Armstrong joined TikTok five years ago as one of the first senior hires for TikTok Australia. Armstrong is Google’s former New Zealand country manager and head of media agencies in the ANZ region. Prior to that, he worked for Digilent Consulting, Macquarie Bank and Westpac Institutional Bank. Denny Handlin, TikTok’s previous head of global business marketing AUNZ, is being succeeded by Sushmitha ‘Sushi’ Ghatty, TikTok’s marketing strategy and operations lead. Handlin is another early joiner of TikTok Australia from Facebook. He worked for Dentsu and Clememger BBDO before Facebook. Ghatty worked for Google and EY before joining TikTok last year. 

 

Enigma has appointed Simon Lee to the newly created role of chief creative officer and partner following a six-month executive search process. Lee takes the creative helm of the agency’s 80-strong team across Sydney, Newcastle, and Brisbane and becomes the agency’s first CCO and the first leader to join as a partner. Most recently he was the creative architect, leader and joint owner of The Hallway.

 

Dept is expanding its operations in India with the launch of a dedicated hub in Bengaluru. Leading the efforts from Bengaluru is Rishi Bhargava, head of solution consulting at Dept India. Bhargava and his team will work closely with partner Adobe to deliver solutions to businesses headquartered in the region. Bhargava joined Dept from Axeno in 2024. Previously, he worked for Adobe and IBM. 

 

BBC Studios has appointed Robi Stanton as EVP & general manager of global media and streaming for Australia & New Zealand. In this role, she will be responsible for content sales, channels and streaming and advertising sales in the region. Stanton brings over 25 years of experience across distribution, commercial strategy, marketing and advertising sales in a range of executive leadership roles in global media and entertainment companies. She was most recently commercial director for CNN International. Previously, she held senior roles at Warner Bros Discovery and Turner International.

 

C27 has been named the official social media agency for United International Pictures (UIP) Malaysia. The partnership aligns with C27 and UIP Malaysia’s shared vision of fuelling a desire and need in audiences to experience movies as an art form to its preferred quality.

David Dahan has been elevated to global client lead, Milo, and managing director, Nestle Asia, at Ogilvy. Dahan joined the agency network in 2017 as its worldwide managing director of Unilever, based in Singapore. He was promoted to global client lead of Unilever in 2019. Before moving to Ogilvy, he was the founder & managing director of Unilever at WPP. Prior to WPP, he also served as T&Pm APAC president, CMO of Australian Weaving, and managing director of M&C Saatchi Australia. He also worked for Ogilvy London and BBDO Asia in his early career.