McCann Kuala Lumpur's business director exits

McCann Kuala Lumpur's business director Janine Wai, has departed from her role after nearly one and a half years with the agency. 

Prior to joining McCann, Wai had been the business director for growth and product at dentsu Creative Malaysia, for over two years, leading integrated growth and innovation strategies across key accounts and new business. Before that role, she was with dentsu Malaysia for nearly five years as director and brand lead, as well as group account director. 

She also has experience working across both agency and brand side at TBWA\Malaysia, Ogilvy, TBWA-ISC Malaysia, and Domino's Pizza Malaysia & Singapore. 

After wrapping up her stint as business director at McCann Kuala Lumpur last week, Janine Wai is leaving with a renewed perspective on what it takes for modern marketing to deliver meaningful business outcomes.

Don't miss: McCann Singapore names new CEO as Paul Soon exits

Reflecting on her time at the agency, Wai said her role spanned account management, brand growth, transformation, market entry, commercial problem-solving and creative development.

"My time at McCann gave me a wider view of how modern marketing really moves," she told A+M. "I was working across brand growth, client leadership, transformation, market entry, commercial problem-solving and creative development, often all at once."

One of her biggest takeaways, she said, is that strong creative ideas alone are not enough, and strategy has to remain alive all the way to execution and business outcomes.

"A brief is rarely just a brief. There is usually a business pressure underneath it, be it a growth gap, a category tension, or a decision that still needs to be made," Wai explained. And in order to ensure that ideas don't lose momentum, strong infrastructure is required. 

"Strong ideas need structure to stay strong. A good idea can start with depth and creative ambition, but once it moves through feedback, channels, timelines, approvals and measurement, it can lose force if the infrastructure around it is unclear," she said. "Creativity needs imagination, but it also needs an operating spine."

Drawing on her experience across business direction and client leadership, Wai shared three lessons for current and aspiring industry professionals. First, she believes marketers and account leaders need to understand the business tension behind every brief rather than simply managing deliverables.

"The people who can read that pressure clearly and connect the dots between what the business says it wants and what it actually needs to do differently will be more valuable than those who only move the brief along," she said.

Second, Wai emphasised the importance of protecting an idea's strategic integrity beyond the presentation stage. "A good idea needs infrastructure: alignment, clarity and operating discipline to retain its depth through execution. Knowing how to hold that together is a skill the industry does not talk about enough."

Finally, she argued that measurement should be embedded into the development process rather than treated as an afterthought. "Modern marketers need to know whether attention is becoming intent, whether intent is becoming action, and whether the business is ready to move to the next stage," Wai said.

Looking ahead, Wai said her next chapter will focus on helping businesses bridge the gap between creative ambition and commercial outcomes. "The campaign launches, the attention peaks, and then the business asks: what did we actually get from that?" she said. "That is the gap I want to close."

Wai added that while artificial intelligence (AI) will play a role in her future work, and it will serve primarily as an enabler rather than the centrepiece.

"For me, it is an enabler of clarity, speed and sharper decision-making. The bigger focus is building the infrastructure that helps good thinking retain its commercial force all the way to market," she said.

"The work I am most drawn to now is not just making something look better, sound better or move faster. It is helping the thinking hold all the way from brand idea to business outcome," shared Wai. 

Last year, McCann Kuala Lumpur appointed Tan Kien Eng as executive chairman, leveraging his vast experience to enhance the agency's capabilities and strengthen its position in the highly competitive advertising landscape.

Sean Sim, CEO, McCann Kuala Lumpur, said at the time that Tan "lends much-needed firepower and his vision will be instrumental as we continue to evolve the agency for long-term success."

Meanwhile, the wider McCann network has experienced a number of recent leadership changes across the region, following Omnicom's acquisition of IPG. The structural change revealed that several long-established agency brands will be retired, including DDB, FCB and MullenLowe, leaving behind just three global networks: BBDO, McCann and TBWA.

Following which, media reports from last week noted that McCann chairman Daryl Lee will exit the company effective next week. Prior to that, he was global CEO of McCann Worldgroup for three and a half years. 

Over in Asia, McCann Singapore promoted Gonzalo Olivera to chief executive officer as part of a planned leadership transition that also saw Paul Soon step down from his role and relocate to the US for personal reasons.

In February, Bottega Veneta’s marketing and communications director for Greater China Mae Ng returned to McCann Worldgroup as chief client officer of McCann China, reporting to Carter Chow, McCann Worldgroup Greater China CEO. 

Later in April, McCann Worldgroup promoted Brandon Cheung to CEO, McCann Worldgroup Southeast Asia. Formerly the chief global client and growth officer of McCann Worldgroup, Cheung brings over two decades of strategic and digital expertise across brand building, performance marketing and customer experience to the role.

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McCann Singapore unveils new leadership team