Bastion Agency has appointed Cheuk Chiang as its new CEO for Australia and New Zealand. Chiang moves from his position as APAC CEO for Dentsu Creative.
In the new role at the integrated marketing and communications agency, Chiang will be responsible for driving business expansion, and have operational as well as P&L responsibility across Bastion’s AUNZ business. His appointment follows Bastion’s March acquisition of digital creative agency AnalogFolk.
Bastion Group CEO Jack Watts said Chiang’s appointment “represents a major investment in our next phase of growth,” describing him as “an evangelist for this industry and our transformative role in the world.”
“We’re the biggest independent, but we want to be the best agency in the region, period. We’ve continually reinvested in our business, our people and our clients over the years and this is the next step on that journey,” he said.
“We’ve been in business almost 15 years and it’s a thrill to bring in someone of Cheuk’s calibre to lead our business across ANZ.
“We’ve got over 300 people across seven offices in Australia and New Zealand and it’s critical now that we have someone leading the business working day in day out to solve our clients biggest problems.”
Prior to Dentsu Creative, Chiang was greater north APAC CEO for Dentsu, chairman at AI start-up Mutiny, APAC CEO at Omnicom Media Group, APAC CEO for PHD, and MD at cummins&partners.
At OMG, Chiang led OMD and PHD to over 130 local and regional agency of the year awards across the APAC region, all while expanding PHD from three offices to 21. His tenure at cummins&partners was marked by a number of agency of the year awards, with the agency later acquired by Sapient Nitro.
Commenting on the appointment, Chiang said that “after spending time with Bastion’s key leaders, talent, and clients, I was super impressed with the strength and depth of Bastion’s capabilities.”
“In a world where clients are struggling to survive and thrive against challenging market forces, they need help to not only better compete but also gain competitive advantage.
“Few agency groups can help them do this with the strength of integrated capabilities that Bastion has. Leveraging Bastion’s well stitched together offering and ‘one stop shop’ to help put clients in a position of strength as well as the ability to deliver industry leading innovation got me very excited.”
Founded by brothers Fergus and Jack Watts, Bastion has scaled over the past decade to become one of the largest independent agencies in Asia Pacific, servicing such clients as Air New Zealand, Microsoft, Xbox, Kellogg’s, Spark, Unilever, L’Oreal, Crown Resorts, and AIA.
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Top image: Jack Watts and Cheuk Chiang