The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has revamped its APAC leadership, naming senior marketers from Coca-Cola and GSK in key roles.
Pratik Thakar, a former agency strategy executive and now director of Integrated marketing communication, Southeast Asia, at The Coca-Cola Company, become APAC chair for the CMO Forum.
Silas Lewis-Meilus, senior director, APAC head of media at GSK, takes the role of APAC chair for the Media Forum.
“We are truly living in the golden age of media," says Silas Lewis-Meilus.
"Our industry has an amazing opportunity to focus on a spectrum of subjects ranging from renewing the role and value of strategic thinking to the highly technical subjects of data and digital."
Both the CMO and media forums are invitation only, peer-to-peer network, providing global and regional marketing leaders with a platform to exchange insights and experiences in order to better navigate the fast-changing global marketing landscape.
The APAC CMO Forum champions WFA’s flagship initiative, Better Marketing, at a regional level to ensure that this people-first framework for marketing leadership resonates with senior Asian and Asia-based marketers.
Across bi-annual meetings in Singapore and the yearly CMO Luncheon, more than 100 marketers come together annually to discuss wide ranging issues impacting C-Level marketers, from marketing structures and capability, to partnerships and purpose.
The APAC Media Forum is focused on translating the WFA’s Global Media Charter into reality across Asia’s varied media markets, ensuring that advertisers benefit from a transparent marketplace that can clearly demonstrate how media investment delivers business growth. This group meets three times a year in the region, twice in Singapore and once in Shanghai.
Thakar has assumed a wide range of leadership roles for The Coca-Cola Company over the last seven years having previously worked in senior strategy roles with McCann Worldgroup and Saatchi & Saatchi in Southeast Asia, China and India.
Lewis-Meilus previously worked for McDonald’s in a similar role. He has also worked in senior agency roles in Singapore, London and New York.
The CMO Forum was previously headed by Sam Ahmed, previously with Standard-Chartered Bank, with Lewis-Meilus taking over from Unilever’s David Porter, who has taken on the role of WFA vice Ppresident for APAC.
“The WFA’s strength is its members and with two more very senior marketing leaders working alongside our executive team we will be even better placed to ensure we are addressing the issues that marketers in the region need tackled,” says Stephan Loerke, CEO of the WFA.
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