OMG: MAKING LOCALISATION THE TOP PRIORITY

Q] It’s been a little over a year since you took over as CEO of OMG APAC. What are some of your top priorities for the region and strategy for execution?
When you come into a role like this, it’s probably the most diverse region you can wish to run. Compare China’s needs to Japan to India, it’s so diverse. The key thing has been to compartmentalise the regions for what they are, initially. Otherwise you can overwhelm yourself, it’s so vast. The priority is to get the right talent on the ground. In some markets, the task is to address over-dependence on global client relationships. The focus has been to ensure that localisation takes precedence. We want the capabilities for the agency groups to be consistent across the board, but they need to be tailored and localised to ensure relevance to the market they’re in. That ensures that we’re securing big local partners as well. There’s always been this thinking, historically, that multinational clients drive capability, local clients create stability. Now, local clients too demand the same level of capability from an agency. So, there’s a big focus on ensuring that we’re locally fit to deliver against the objectives of clients.