Spotify hires CtrlShift’s head of business consulting

Spotify has hired Ong Sea Yen as regional VP of sales for Spotify in Asia.Previously digital marketing solutions company CtrlShift’s head of business consulting, Ong has 16 years’ experience in mainstream advertising and digital sales. He was based in Malaysia.  Prior to working with CtrlShift for a year, he also worked as regional director at Better Digital Solutions, Yellow Brick Road, Rapp Collins Worldwide and OgilvyOne in Malaysia.Based in Spotify’s Singapore office, Ong will be responsible for driving Spotify Asia's advertising revenue and strategy. Ong will lead custom partnerships and brand initiatives across the current markets Spotify is in Asia.“Ong joins us at a key time,” says Sunita Kaur, Managing Director, Spotify, Asia. “Very few mobile platforms have an audience as highly engaged as Spotify’s, where an average user is spending 148 minutes a day listening to music. It makes perfect sense to tap into Spotify’s passionate audience. A total of 65% of global streams are now on mobile devices and we’ve recently introduced new ad products in the region such as Sponsored Sessions and Mobile Overlay to capture this mobile-first audience.”Ong's expertise across the digital spectrum covering display, mobile, search, social and programmatic advertising is seen as key with Spotify's advertising business having grown 100% year over year; with such outstanding growth Spotify’s Asian team is committed to introducing more relevant ways for advertisers to reach brands."Spotify has stamped its mark as the no. 1 music streaming service in the world. With great achievements globally as well as in Asia, Spotify signifies the rise of a new state of maturity for content streaming. Spotify has also placed great focus on cutting edge and data driven technology in order to build solid advertising solutions for brands to connect with its targeted audience," said Ong.While at CtrlShift, Ong also spent three years leading the team selling Spotify advertising across Malaysia & Philippines as a reseller. His experience and passion saw the team grow these markets to be amongst the top performing countries for Spotifyin terms of advertising sales.