Publicis Groupe appoints Amrita Randhawa as Chief Executive Officer, South East Asia

Publicis Groupe today announced the appointment of Amrita Randhawa as Chief Executive Officer, Publicis Groupe South East Asia.

With this new role, Publicis Groupe will bring all markets including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand under one leadership. With South East Asia led as one region, it will create even more opportunities for all of our talents and clients, while leveraging the individual strengths of each country so that in turn they can play a bigger role in this large ecosystem.

Randhawa will start her new role on June 1st and be fully responsible for all the operations of Publicis Groupe in the South East Asia region, from creative to media, influence, production, commerce, data, tech and clients. Her priority will be to drive impact for our clients by making them win in a platform world. She will be based in Singapore, reporting to Loris Nold, CEO Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Publicis Groupe.

Randhawa is one of the most accomplished and inspiring leaders in the region.

Most recently, she was APAC CEO for Mindshare and Executive Chair for Greater China, a position she was appointed to in March 2018.

Prior to that role, she was CEO of Mindshare China, a role she took on at just 34. And before that, she held client leadership roles locally, regionally and globally on clients including L’Oréal, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Yum!  and  Nike  across  Delhi,  Mumbai,  Beijing  and  Singapore. Amrita is no stranger to Publicis Groupe as she was with Starcom in Bangalore between 2003 and 2005.

Amrita was recognized as one of Campaign Asia Pacific’s 40 under 40 in 2013, awarded Campaign’s Greater China Agency Head of the Year in 2014, was one of Ad Age China’s 10 Women to Watch in 2015 and recognized as Business Leader of the Year at the 2017 Women Leading Change awards and CEO of the Year at the 2018 Women Leading Change awards. She is passionate about talents and talent development. This year she begins her role as Chairperson of Mediaworks which is a mentoring and workshop experience for young media professionals in APAC.

She has also served as an awarding jury member for the Cannes Media Lions and as President of the Spikes Media Jury.

“I am absolutely thrilled with Amrita joining us. She is one of the most admired leaders in our region and a true change agent. She is exactly the progressive leader we need to take on this incredibly important region. She brings superior product expertise, across performance, ecommerce, data, content and technology to which she adds true leadership and a great understanding of what clients want and need. There is so much ambition behind her joining us.

I have been lucky to be very involved with our South East Asia operations. In Singapore for many years and more recently with all other markets in SEA. It makes me even more convinced that Amrita is the perfect leader to take on this big responsibility. Across these markets, we have strong leadership, capabilities and I couldn’t be more proud of our talent pool.

Beyond her outstanding track record, Amrita is a great human being, someone whom I am absolutely certain all of us will want to work with and learn from.

I have known and respected Amrita as a competitor for many years. And after a 16-year long detour, she is finally coming home ! I can’t wait for us to get started.” said Loris Nold.

Says Amrita Randhawa “The opportunity to bring data, technology, creativity and media together for clients in one seamless offer. The opportunity to lead a region that still has so much headroom for growth for clients. Those are simply not opportunities you can say no to. Add to that how every conversation with Loris and the team at Publicis started and ended with passion, enthusiasm and commitment to the need to be in service of the  transforming needs of clients, not just as a groupe but as an industry, and I was sold. The vision and authenticity specifically around unleashing the best within people to deliver change was refreshing, leaving me impatient to start. I've had a dream run at Mindshare with mentors, colleagues, friends and teams that have made work a joy - they have nothing but my best wishes”.