UM fuels integration with senior hires

Malaysia - As promised, McCann is making appointments to strengthen its integrated workforce with two new leadership hires in the Marketing Sciences and Digital area.

Leading Universal McCann (UM) consulting unit as its director is C.N Ramakrishnan who takes on the task of providing clients with marketing consultancy and a diagnostic analysis of return-on-investment (ROI) in supporting their campaigns.

Ramakrishnan joins UM from the Aditya Birla Group’s non-tyre segment (a Fortune 500 firm) in Egypt where he was Head of Marketing.

David Fu signs on as UM’s Head of Digital, supervising digital infusion in marketing for big names in the coporate world including Johnson & Johnson, Proton, Coca-Cola and F&N.

Fu, a digital media specialist, played a key role in Astro’s growth in the digital arena and worked with Innity, assisting clients to inhabit the digital media during the formative years.

Prashant Kumar, chief executive officer, UM said: “With a volatile global economy dictating our fate next year, clients need to get more out of their investments not just in terms of efficiency, but also in sales, market share and preference.”

Concurring with a majority of marketing observers, he said digital opportunities offer higher returns comparing to conventional channels.

“Fu has a mandate to identify these opportunities and raise the game in a tough year,” he said.

On Ramakrishnan’s recruitment to the group, he said UM intends to use his insider perspective of a marketing background to keep a close watch on the brands investments’s growth and how business outcomes are maximised.

“We want to make up by getting more bang with what our clients lose due to lack of macro-economic momentum,” Prashant added.