GroupM Malaysia’s [m]PLATFORM lead Bach Kolling heads to Amsterdam

GroupM Malaysia's head of [m]PLATFORM Robin Bach Kolling has been promoted to be the managing director of [m]PLATFORM in Amsterdam, responsible for the Netherlands market. Bach Kolling will assume his new role at Netherlands’ capital city on the 1 August, with his last day in Kuala Lumpur being on 14 July.As Malaysia’s head of [m]PLATFORM, Bach Kolling is responsible for the digital specialist units of GroupM to support all the agencies including Mindshare, Mediacom, MEC-Maxus and m/Six in servicing client brands. This includes areas in programmatic marketing solutions, performance marketing, digital ad operations and data analytics.In an exclusive conversation, GroupM Malaysia CEO Girish Menon said the digital strategist will take over a large team in a "very sophisticated" market, and will be responsible for a number of new product and service roll-outs coming from [m]PLATFORM in the coming months. He will report to Eric Kramer, CEO of GroupM Netherlands.[m]PLATFORM is the data and technology center of excellence in GroupM. Formed at the end of 2016, it combines all of GroupM's digital expertise under one roof, integrating its offering across performance, programmatic, social, digital content and data analytics."In Malaysia, Bach Kolling has been working with me to design the future roadmap of [m]PLATFORM and we have identified the leadership of the various [m]PLATFORM pillars which will be put to action in the coming months in Malaysia. It's a great move for him and testimony to his talent and successful track record in Malaysia since Q4 2015," Menon said.Bach Kolling has led several digital leadership positions in media agencies across GroupM, IPG Mediabrands, and independent agencies in Malaysia and the Netherlands in the past 10 years."The growth in digital in Malaysia was the most exciting aspect to be a part of not just in terms of digital ad expenditure, but specifically the exponential growth in digital capabilities as well. It was such a rich experience to see talents across GroupM step up in digital and developing new levels of expertise on data, analytics and technology," Bach Kolling said.He is also a council member of the Malaysian Digital Association (MDA) where he is responsible for the "knowledge advisory".Serm Teck Choon, president of MDA and Malaysia country head of CtrlShift said "Bach Kolling has contributed enormously in term of organising MDA-IAB programmatic and mobile training event. He also helped with the launch of MDA School. These initiatives have enriched hundreds of industry personnel on their digital know-hows. With this MDA 'alumni' heading back to Amsterdam, we have more direct access to this very advanced market, which I'm sure we can learn more from him in the future. I wish him the very best in his future endeavour," he said.