Arrivals & Departures

The South China Morning Post lost two more senior executives from its senior team with marketing director Lydia Lee leaving after less than six months in the top marketing job and group operations director Dominic Yin confirming he will leave the publishing group on 18 July. The SCMP was unable to detail Lee and Yin's resignations. Lee's departure in particular follows high turnover from the newspaper group's marketing department. Another senior marketing departure this month comes from Starwood Hotels & Resorts with Oliver Bonke announcing his is moving from Asia to Europe where he will serve as Starwood's SVP of sales & marketing for Europe, Africa and Middle East. Bonke is a Starwood veteran having been with the company since 1989. Meanwhile over in agency land and the past month saw some interesting moves within the WPP's media buying consortium, Groupm. John Steedman, Groupm chairman & Asia-Pacific CEO, is leaving after a career lasting more than 33 years with WPP. Mark Patterson, Groupm's regional COO is succeeding Steedman as CEO. Meanwhile, Groupm China promoted Lisa Wei to managing partner of Groupm Trading and Roger Li to chief talent officer. Wei has been head of Groupm Trading since 2005 and played a key role in supporting Groupm agencies in many new business wins. Both moves are effective immediately. Still up in China and financlial PR group Gavin Anderson announced it had finally launched an operation in Beijing and appointed Brion Tingler as director. Gavin Anderson has been in Hong Kong since 1985, but this move represents its first push into the Greater China region. Tingler returns to Beijing after two years with Gavin Anderson in New York City. Finally Xinhua Finance announced a shuffle of its senior ranks promoting Jae Lie as CEO of the company succeeding the company's founder Fredy Bush who moves to the role of executive vice-chairman. Lie joined Xinhua Finance in 2000 and previously served as director, COO and president. He said he will continue to work with Bush, to build on synergies between Xinhua Finance and XFMedia.