Agency agenda: Ogilvy ASEAN CEO Kunal Jeswani on his 3 big bets for 2026

Ogilvy’s ASEAN business spans six remarkably different markets, and for Kunal Jeswani, the CEO overseeing Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, 2024 has been a baptism by fire. Speaking on Marketing Connected's Agency Agenda, Jeswani shared that upon taking on the regional role earlier this year, he quickly realised that scaling from two markets to six was not simply a matter of widening oversight. It meant navigating complexity in a year that has been far more volatile than expected.

“It has been tough for me personally, not so much managing the width of it, but managing the complexity of it in a particularly challenging year,” he said. Each market has its own pressures, but the single biggest concern across the region has been shrinking budgets.

Growth is the fuel that drives our business forward. When we are struggling to grow, it creates all sorts of problems.

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Yet amid tough market conditions, Jeswani is clear about where momentum is building. The strongest growth across ASEAN is coming from three rapidly scaling capabilities. “Social, influence and full service content studios for clients. Those are three drivers of our growth,” he said.

He explained that while traditional advertising continues to soften, demand for new content and influence-led models is outpacing the agency’s ability to keep up. Today, the network has 180 specialists across these six markets. By next year, Jeswani intends to double this. “I need to scale that 180 to 360, and that needs to go quickly.”

Markets such as the Philippines and Singapore are already benefiting from earlier investments in these spaces. “Philippines is the one market where our social influence content capability is already extremely strong. As revenue shifts from advertising into these spaces, we are able to grow faster.” In other markets, the task is to scale new capabilities fast enough to offset advertising declines.

To get there, Jeswani believes everything must start with leadership. “Having strong leaders in every market who understand the space in which you want to grow and represent it,” he said. With social and influence leads now placed across the region, the focus is on building teams that can support integrated work where social and influence sit at the centre.

As 2026 approaches, the agenda is unmistakably clear. “All our growth next year is going to come from social, influence and content.” And at the heart of that growth, Jeswani promises one thing:

What you will see from us is more great work. Work that we enjoy, work we are proud of, and work that we'd want to share with our friends. 

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