CMO Participants

Srinivas K Reddy
CMO Round Table Chair
Academic Director,
LVMH-SMU Luxury Brand Initiative
Singapore Management University

Srinivas K. Reddy is Professor of Marketing and Director, Center for Marketing Excellence, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University. He served as the Associate Dean of General Management overseeing the MBA and the Executive MBA programs. Previously, he was the Robert O. Arnold Professor of Business and the Director of the Coca-Cola Center for Marketing Studies, Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He holds M.Phil and Ph.D. degrees in Business Administration from Columbia University. Dr. Reddy was on the faculties of New York University’s Stern School of Business, Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles and the Stanford Business School.

Dr. Reddy's expertise is in innovation, new product development, marketing and competitive strategy involving new brands and services. Dr. Reddy’s research has been published in Journal of
Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Statistical Science, Social Networks, Marketing Letters, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Decision Support Systems and Journal of Business Research. In 2006, he has been awarded the IBM’s prestigious SUR grant to study corporate innovativeness and innovation conversion.

He has consulted and taught executive programs for major firms including IBM, Coca-Cola Company, United Parcel Service, Miller Brewing, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, MasterCard and Unilever. Dr. Reddy was the winner of Teaching Excellence in Executive Development in 2015 and was one of 3 at SMU nominated for this award in 2014 and 2015. He was the recipient of MBA Excellence in Teaching Award in 2014.

He was nominated for Excellence in Post Graduate Teaching 2017. His award winning cases on Gillette in India (EFMD Award, ECCH Global Award in 2018) and Oreo in China have been featured in Financial Times. He edited a special issue on Digital Transformation which was published in May 2017.

Sotis Dramalis
Vice President / Head of JAPAC Marketing 
Oracle

Sotis Dramalis leads marketing for Oracle in Japan & Asia Pacific. He joined the company in July 2017 to drive the marketing organization’s transformation to the cloud by deploying a digital and country first audience marketing strategy. As part of his role he manages the regional marketing teams as well as the JAPAC marketing functions. These include Marketing Strategy & Operations, Digital and Brand Experience, Cloud GTM Campaigns, Industry & Account-Based Marketing and Mid-Market Marketing.

Under his leadership, marketing revenue doubled and Oracle received the distinguished award of ‘Best Brand Asia’ by CMO Asia. Sotis also led the successful hiring and onboarding of over 60 external marketing talents to his team, which now comprised of 80% women in leadership and 40% millennial talent.

Sotis joined Oracle from SAP where he was VP of Marketing, as Chief of Staff for the Global CMO. From strategy to execution, he was responsible for leading executive business management, communications and programs around awareness, demand generation and marketing transformation. He led the successful flagship campaign, Live Business, re-positioning SAP as a Cloud brand externally. His passion for diversity and inclusion, resulted in the creation of the Women in Leadership and Early Talent Academy programs for SAP Marketing globally.

Prior to this role, Sotis spent five years with SAP in Singapore where he held the roles of Line of Business Marketing Director for APJ and Head of Southeast Asia Marketing. His responsibilities included transforming the marketing organization and leading strategy, planning and execution in alignment with business objectives and market opportunities. During his tenure he tripled both pipeline and revenue contribution from marketing. He initially joined SAP in Germany where he worked as Solution Marketing Manager in the global marketing division, and subsequently spent three years in South Africa where he led both the Large Enterprise and SME marketing functions.

Sotis holds an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and a Bachelor's degree in International Business from the UK and Germany. He is passionate about translating business requirements into successful marketing strategies and is a strong ambassador of diversity, inclusion and intercultural teams.

Outside of Oracle, Sotis is an advisory member of the Asia Pacific CMO Council. As part of his voluntary work, he also coaches millennials and women in IT on career planning, executive communications and presence.

Tan Bee Leng
Vice President Corporate Marketing & Corporate Social Responsibility / General Manager CapitaLand Hope Foundation
CapitaLand Limited

Is currently Vice President of Corporate Marketing & Corporate Social Responsibility at CapitaLand. Besides overseeing the corporate branding strategies and marketing communications efforts of CapitaLand, Bee Leng manages the philanthropy and volunteerism efforts of the Group. Bee Leng is also the General Manager of CapitaLand Hope Foundation, the philanthropic arm of CapitaLand, which focuses efforts on education, healthcare and shelter needs of underprivileged children.

From 2005 – 2007, Bee Leng was based in China as the China Correspondent for English language Asian TV News channel – Channel NewsAsia. Before joining Channel NewsAsia, Bee Leng was an award-winning journalist reporting and hosting Chinese news programmes for MediaCorp TV Channel 8.

Bee Leng graduated from the National University of Singapore, majoring in Chinese Studies and Chinese Language (with an emphasis on translation studies).

Nilesh Shah
Chief Marketing Officer
Asia Pacific GE Healthcare, Singapore

Nilesh is currently the Chief Marketing Officer for GE Healthcare Asia Pacific region based in Singapore. He leads marketing and commercial operations teams for Japan, ASEAN, ANZ and South Korea and has been in this position since July 2012. Prior to this role, Nilesh was the Global Chief Marketing Officer for CT Scan business at GE Healthcare in Milwaukee, WI, USA for three years. Prior to joining GE Healthcare, he was with Johnson & Johnson Medical for 10 years in various commercial, marketing and business development roles.

Nilesh was born in Mumbai, India and was youngest of three siblings in the house. He attended University of Mumbai and graduated with a degree in Engineering before moving to Boston, USA and graduating with a Masters of Science degree in Engineering from University of Massachusetts. After working for 3 years as a Design Engineer, Nilesh decided to pursue Masters degree in business administration at The Ohio State University. Post his MBA, Nilesh joined J & J and worked in different locations in the US and EU.

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Susie Wong
Chief Marketing Officer
IBM ASEAN

Susie is a storyteller who tells stories to influence sales and create new marketing experiences. She is a commercially minded senior marketing professional of over 20 years with a focus on returns and bottom-line. Her current job at IBM as the ASEAN Chief Marketing Officer is to use data scientifically as the #NewWayToEngage clients. Susie’s multitude of roles in her IBM tenure includes heading regional digital strategy for ASEAN, crafting brand strategies for the growth markets (Asia Pacific, Middle East, North Africa, and South America), leading integrated marketing & communications for ASEAN/South Asia, to name a few.  Prior to being in technology, Susie started her career in the hospitality & government industries.  In her leisure, she practices Pilates and is a kettle bell aficionado.

Rohit Girdhar
Head of Strategy and Market Development Asia Pacific
Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific

Rohit Girdhar holds a Bachelor degree in engineering from BITS – PIlani, India, a Master of Science from Stanford University, being the recipient of Stanford’s Graduate Engineering Fellowship, as well as an MBA from INSEAD. He started his professional career at Teradyne Inc. San Jose, California in 1998 as an engineer/project manager. Between 2003 and 2004 he was employed at General Electric (GE). In 2005 he joined Infineon Technologies in Singapore, Infineon being Germany’s largest semiconductor company. In his current role, he is part of the regional top management leadership team and works on strategic assignments for Infineon legal entities in the Asia-Pacific region, e.g. in China, India, Taiwan, ASEAN, Korea and Australia. Rohit is currently a part of the Asia Europe Young Leader’s Forum organized by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany.

Alok Mishra
Vice President, Strategic Business Systems
Johnson & Johnson Medical Asia Pacific

Mr Alok Mishra is currently the Vice President, Strategic Business Systems, Johnson & Johnson Medical Asia Pacific. Prior to his current assignment, Mr Mishra was the Vice President – Strategic Marketing & Market Access, Johnson & Johnson Medical Asia Pacific. Alok has worked in Johnson & Johnson for over 16 years and has held positions as Franchise Manager Cordis, Managing Director of Singapore and India and as the Area Vice President, South Asia.

Alok has a Master’s Degree in Pharmacy and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. He began his career in marketing in multinational companies in India viz, Boots Pharmaceuticals & Burroughs Wellcome and with a distribution company in the Middle East. He is a Member of MENSA. He is an adjunct faculty member at the MBA Program of National University of Singapore.

Alok has wide exposure to the health care industry – Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices and is currently a Council member of the Singapore Manufacturers Association and Chairman of the India Business Group covering India, Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. In the past, he has held positions of Chairman of Medical Technology Industry Group (MTIG) of Singapore Manufacturers’ Federation, and Chairman of Medical Technology Standards Committee of the Standards Council and Chairman of Medical Technology Group, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Sam Ahmed
Director, Head of Payments, Fintech, Asia
Facebook

Sam Ahmed is the Head of Strategic Payment Partnerships for APAC. Sam and his team are responsible for key payment Fin Serv & Fintech partnerships across the family of Facebook Apps supporting both consumer, merchant uscases, in addition to Facebook’s ads business.

Prior to Facebook, Sam was with Standard Chartered Bank where he was Global Head of Digital, Insights and Retail Marketing, leading the team across 1200 branches in 66 countries. Prior to this he was with Mastercard as Senior Vice President Head of Marketing and Ecommerce for Asia Pacific where he led the company’s ecommerce innovation which in three years took the brand from 77th to 22nd place in Asia Top 1000 Brands (Nielsen/Campaign).

Prior to this Sam was with Starbucks as Head of Product , Loyalty, Digital and Marketing for Asia Pacific across 3000 stores.

Sam was recognized in 2018 as Top 50 Digital Leaders Asia Pacific “Digerati Awards” by Drum Magazine (Voted by Industry), also in 2018 he was awarded in the Asia-Pacific Power List: "The region's most influential leaders" by Campaign Asia-Pacific. Sam has been awarded by the World Health Organization for his work in the fight against Osteoporosis one of Asia Pacific most debilitating diseases. Sam is a Harvard Business School graduate, loves surfing, golf and coaching his two boys cricket.

Lynette Ang
Chief Brand & Communications Officer
NTUC Enterprise NTUC Income

Lynette Ang assumed the role of Chief Brand & Communications Officer at NTUC Enterprise, the holding cooperative of all the NTUC Social Enterprises effective 1 November 2013. Formerly, she was the Senior Vice President and Head, Strategic Marketing & Communications of NTUC Income and she has been with NTUC Income since 2007 and has been responsible for driving the company’s branding, marketing and communication strategy. In the six years she has been with NTUC Income, she has held several other responsibilities including overseeing sales and customer intelligence.

Prior to this, Ms Ang was the Marketing Director of APL (Part of the NOL group) for more than five years, with global responsibilities for branding and marketing. With more than 20 years’ experience in branding and marketing, Ms Ang began her career in distinguished multi-national corporations such as Coca-Cola, Unilever and Anderson Consulting (Accenture).

Subsequently, she became one of the pioneers of the standalone e-Bank, finatiq.com that was set up by OCBC. In her capacity as Chief Marketing Officer of finatiq.com, she transformed the organisation into a highly recognisable brand in a short span of time.

Ms Ang graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Business Administration.

Alvin Neo
Chief Marketing Officer
Parkway Pantai (part of IHH Healthcare)

Alvin Neo is Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Parkway Pantai, part of IHH Healthcare (one of Asia’s leading private healthcare providers and the world’s second largest listed healthcare operator). He oversees operational and strategic marketing, sales, customer experience and call center functions for the company’s largest division.

A veteran business leader, Alvin has over 20 years of extensive marketing, strategy, innovation and start-up experience across the Asia Pacific and Europe. He has deep FMCG marketing and brand leadership roots, having worked with Proctor & Gamble, Gillette and J&J Consumer. In addition, he has done tours of duty in top-tier Strategy Consulting as a team leader with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and in Technology as Global Business Development Director with UK startup Netdecisions. More recently he was in Healthcare with J&J Medical Devices & Diagnostics.

Singaporean by birth, he has also lived in London, Shanghai and Jakarta. Alvin has a BBA from the National University of Singapore and completed the GMP at the Cambridge Judge School. His interests outside of work include anything outdoors (marathons, trail running, trekking), design and volunteerism.

Ximo Soler
Chief Marketing Officer, APAC
Randstad

Ximo Soler is the Chief Marketing Officer for the Asia Pacific region. Soler will provide strategic direction for the Asia Pacific marketing community in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Soler joined Randstad Spain in 2000 and Randstad Australia and New Zealand in 2012, bringing a wealth of experience in operations, marketing, communications and business concepts. As a key member of the senior leadership team in Australia, New Zealand and Spain, and the global Randstad Marketing and Concepts community, he has led Randstad’s brand development, product management, marketing and communications strategy and execution, demonstrating global best practice.

He was instrumental in securing our sponsorship of the World Business Forum in Sydney and maximising our investment in the Randstad Award employer branding research project and our global sponsorship of the F1 Williams Martini Racing Team.

He has also formalised Randstad’s internal communications structure, and led its best practice digital and automated marketing strategies.

Soler’s passion for maximising the use of data and analytics to develop the right strategy and ongoing measurement which will assist Randstad in the continued acceleration and growth of the company in the Asia Pacific region.

“I love what I do, and what motivates me is the fact that every day we are placing thousands and thousands of people into meaningful work, and this makes a positive contribution to their life and that of their families' while adding value to the business which hires them,” quoted Soler.

Zarina Lam
Head of Marketing
SAP Asia Pacific & Japan

As Head of Marketing, Zarina Stanford is responsible for the development and implementation of SAP’s marketing strategy across the Asia Pacific and Japan region.

Zarina adopts a customer-centric and insight-driven approach in her go- to-market for SAP in the region, overseeing audience, industry, and portfolio marketing across all customer segments in support of the entire SAP business. She is a recognized change agent who spearheads business and transformational initiatives through imagining the possible.

A seasoned industry veteran, Zarina has held various sales and marketing executive positions in North America and Asia. Prior to joining SAP, she was VP of Marketing at IBM where she oversaw strategy, marketing, and communications for Growth Markets and Asia Pacific.

A champion for industry diversity and inclusion initiatives, Zarina is currently Bilateral Committee Chairperson for Asia Pacific-India Cooperation at the global women’s chamber ALL Ladies League (www.aall.in).

Zarina is a graduate of the Asian Advanced Leadership Program from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. She holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University and a BA in Journalism from the University of North Texas.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Zarina and her family currently reside in Singapore.

You can contact her at Zarina.lam.stanford@sap.com and her LinkedIn profile can be found at @zarinastanford.

Lawrence Yip
Senior Vice-President-Planning & Business Development and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Vietnam
Sembcorp Development Limited

Based in Singapore, Lawrence has spent over 30 years in regional business development and marketing having worked for global companies – Reed Elsevier (USA), TOTAL Oil (France), Honeywell (USA), Bilcare Pharma (India), Yaohan Group (Japan) and Kerry Properties (Hong Kong) with expatriation to Beijing and Hong Kong respectively.

Lawrence graduated from University of Strathclyde (UK) with a Master of Science Degree in International Marketing, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology from the University of Southern Queensland (Australia), an Advanced Business Studies Diploma (Singapore) and a Chartered Diploma in Marketing from CIM (UK).

Geoff Tan
Head, Content Marketing Media Solutions Division
Singapore Press Holdings Limited

Spearheading content marketing at SPH, Geoff oversees the full spectrum of storytelling disciplines anchored across a full suite of native & branded expressions, shaped across a broad spectrum of platforms including video, immersive media, podcast, digital, experiential, social, influencer networks and more, and amplified across an extensive audience universe!

Prior to his current role, Geoff was Managing Director at SPH Magazines overseeing all marketing functions & activities including signature events, client activations, brand guardianship, circulation, database management and more! He was also responsible for partnerships and business development.

Geoff was also a mentor to start-up companies housed within the SPH Plug and Play media accelerator initiative across two tranches.

Geoff was conferred the PANPA 2011 MARKETER OF THE YEAR accolade by the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association for outstanding performance in marketing for a newspaper publishing company.

Pradeep Pant
Centre of Marketing Excellence Advisor (CMO round table)
Singapore Management University

Pradeep is a highly experienced senior business leader, now involved in business consulting and education.

With over 37 years of experience in the FMCG industry, Pradeep is an expert in building businesses in both mature and emerging markets. He has managed a wide range of iconic brands across some of the world’s fastest-growing and complex emerging markets including China, India, Russia, Turkey, and Southeast Asia, as well as developed markets like Australia and New Zealand, Japan, and Korea. He has a deep understanding of market dynamics and cultural diversity. He has a proven track record and passion for turning organizations around.

Pradeep was Executive Vice President and President of Asia Pacific (AP) and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) for Mondelez International till end 2013. Launched on October 1, 2012, Mondelez International consists of the global snacking and food brands of the former Kraft Foods Inc. Pradeep has served as President, Asia Pacific, since 2008 and he assumed his responsibility for the EEMEA region in 2012.

Previously, Pradeep was Regional Managing Director for Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for Fonterra Brands. He was a member of the Fonterra leadership team as well as the company’s global brands marketing group. Prior to Fonterra, he spent 19 years with The Gillette Company, working in India, Russia, Turkey and Asia Pacific. Pradeep has also worked with Nestle, J Walter Thompson and the Tata group.

Pradeep holds a Master of Management Studies degree from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Bombay University, and a BA with Honors degree in Economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University. Pradeep is also the Founding President of Food Industry Asia (FIA), an advisory board Member of SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business and a senior advisor to Hay Group.

Howie Lau
Chief Marketing Officer
Starhub Ltd

Mr. Howie Lau has been Chief Marketing Officer of StarHub Ltd., since July 8, 2015. Mr. Lau is responsible for charting StarHub’s brand and marketing strategies across all marketing functions and ensuring overall marketing synergy and brand consistency. Customer value management also falls under his purview. In addition, he oversees StarHub’s Pay TV and Broadband businesses as well as its Content and Local Production teams. He served as General Manager and Vice President ... at Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. He served as Vice President of Corporate Development of Lenovo's Worldwide Finance Organisation, where he oversaw Lenovo's end-to-end Post Merger Management and related Merger & Acquisition matters. Previously, he was Lenovo's Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Emerging Markets Group, and was responsible for the strategy and execution of marketing and communications in China, Eastern Europe, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Latin America, Middle East, Russia, Taiwan and ASEAN markets. He is President of Singapore Computer Society's Executive Council, and is on the management board for NUS Institute of System Science and advisory committees for Nanyang Polytechnic School of IT and Anderson Junior College. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the National University of Singapore, majoring in Promotional Management and Consumer Behaviour.

Troy Brice
Director & Regional General Manager - Asia Pacific
Swire Oil Services

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Eunice Yap
Chief Marketing Officer
The Esplanade Co Ltd

Eunice is currently the Chief Marketing Officer for Esplanade and her portfolio encompasses marketing (arts, communications & content, digital), relationship management (sponsorship, philanthropy and partnerships), customer experience and mall management.

Prior to Esplanade, she was involved in starting up several companies: Hospitality Group Asia (integrated hospitality solution company), ST Travel Specialist (formed a subsidiary for medicare, healthcare, wellness and silver travel) and The Good Life Co-Operative (healthcare programmes/platforms for members).

She has over 20 years of diverse sales and marketing experience with regional and global hospitality companies such as Millennium & Copthorne (hotel chain in over 60 destinations), Wyndham Worldwide (hotels, destination network and vacation ownership), OAG Worldwide (provider of digital flight information and applications across the travel sector), Fraser Serviced Residences (serviced, hotel residences and boutique lifestyle hotels), Zuji (online travel agency), and Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts (luxury resorts, hotels, spas and residences).

Her areas of speciality include brand building, strategic/integrated marketing, customer experience, change management, digital transformation and product management.

Eunice holds an Executive Masters of Business Administration in International Marketing from Berne University in Switzerland.

Tito Costa
Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer
Zalora

Tito Costa is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Zalora, the leading fashion e-commerce company in South-east Asia. He joined Zalora after launching several internet businesses in Europe and Asia as Managing Director of Rocket Internet.

Before joining Rocket Internet, Tito worked in management consulting at McKinsey & Company, in private equity with Synergo SGR and as a visiting researcher in computer engineering at Stanford University. Tito holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and a Master’s Degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy.

 

 

 

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