Social Mixer 2024 Singapore
marketing interactive Content360 Singapore 2024 Content360 Singapore 2024
Culture Group bolsters leadership team with trio of appointments

Culture Group bolsters leadership team with trio of appointments

share on

Southeast Asian culture marketing agency Culture Group has made a slew of key hires and appointments in a move to strengthen its leadership team and meet the needs of its growing portfolio of clients.

The new senior leadership team includes Jakeena Malli (pictured left) and Ross Henderson (pictured right) who both have been appointed as managing partners as well as Acacia Leroy who has been appointed as head of insights and trends.

Malli was previously the head of client delivery and had led various strong partnerships and content-driven programmes for clients including kumu, Globe Group, Spotify, and Wattpad. In her current role, she will oversee the delivery of work across all client accounts, with additional oversight over project management and production. Malli also plays a key role in leading the development and management of brand partnerships and collaborations, a core offering of the agency.

Before joining Culture Group, Henderson most recently worked as the head of business leadership and managing partner of BBH Singapore where he was responsible for many world-class creative and strategic outcomes for a multitude of globally recognised brands including Nike, Jollibee, Netflix and Sentosa. In his current role, he will be charged with developing the agency’s creative and content offerings, including consumer insights, brand strategy, and partnership opportunities.

Prior to joining Culture Group, Leroy held executive roles at Deloitte Greenhouse where she worked with the likes of Amadeus, Coca-Cola, Kontoor, Singtel, and Unilever to better understand Asian consumers and launch insight-driven innovations to solve complex business challenges. In her current role, she will be responsible for Culture Group’s owned content initiatives and strategising for clients such as Globe Group and Spotify.

Henderson said: “Getting to focus on the things you are passionate about whilst making a huge difference to businesses and brands is pretty special - the opportunity to do that made joining Culture Group a very easy decision for me,”

“I am looking forward to working closely with founder Michael Patent (pictured centre), Malli and the rest of the team to accelerate our growth, and continue to shape pop culture in the region,” he added.

Meanwhile, Patent told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that since launching in 2016, Culture Group has been a founder-led business. Over the last six years, we've seen strong growth, with recent work including mandates from the likes of Coca-Cola, Mastercard and Spotify. "Adopting a managing partner model is the next evolution of the agency’s growth and enables the team to spearhead the future of Culture Group as key stakeholders," he said.

According to him, both Malli and Henderson and have a strong history in innovative, partnership-led work, and they share a desire to continue to break the mold of the traditional agency offering.

Meanwhile, Malli said it has been fantastic to work with the young, dynamic, high-calibre team at Culture Group. "Identifying experiences and talent fueling pop culture is powerful, and this is where Culture Group is most fluent. I am looking forward to continuing to grow our eclectic team of multi-hyphenates, who enable us to anchor brands within passion points," she said.

Last year, the pop culture marketing agency also made a key leadership appointment by naming former dentsu global CEO of content and creative Dick van Motman as chairman of its advisory board. Van Motman's responsibilities include providing advise entry on market entry and development, mergers and acquisitions and executive mentorship.

Van Motman, who served as chairman of Dentsu Southeast Asia and the global CEO of content and creative at Dentsu Aegis Network (formerly known as Dentsu International), boasts over 30 years of expertise developing brands and companies around the globe.

Related articles:
Wattpad's ad unit eyes SEA marketing dollars with Culture Group tie-up
GroupM Nexus APAC names Arshan Saha CEO and Jon Thurlow COO
Ogilvy Malaysia names Michelle Ong executive group director

share on

Follow us on our Telegram channel for the latest updates in the marketing and advertising scene.
Follow

Free newsletter

Get the daily lowdown on Asia's top marketing stories.

We break down the big and messy topics of the day so you're updated on the most important developments in Asia's marketing development – for free.

subscribe now open in new window