Intervenants | Digital Media Asia 2017
Digital Media Asia 2017
Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Digital Product Development, The Washington Post, USA
Shailesh Prakash is the Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Digital Product Development at The Washington Post. He is responsible for all aspects of Product Development and Technology, including web, mobile, video, print and advertising. Under his leadership, and in close partnership with the newsroom, The Post has seen tremendous digital growth. The Post’s digital audience hit an all-time high in November 2016, reaching 107 million unique visitors in the U.S. alone. The Post also had the largest mobile audience of any individual news/information site in the US in October 2016.
AdWeek named The Washington Post the “Hottest Digital Publication” in 2016. In 2015, Fast Company magazine named The Washington Post “The World’s Most Innovative Media Company” and Digiday recognized The Post as “Most Innovative Publisher.”
Prakash has also spearheaded the development of Arc Publishing, The Post’s rapidly growing softwareas-as-service business. This state-of-the-art digital platform and suite of tools is engineered to meet the needs of modern publishers and currently serves more than a dozen clients in the U.S. and around the world.
Shailesh has an extensive track record in senior positions spanning multiple industries. He began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley moving to positions of increasing responsibility at Sun Microsystems and Netscape and Microsoft where he was a key member of the Bing search engine.
Before coming to The Washington Post in August 2011, he was the Vice President in charge of Technology for Sears Holdings, where he oversaw end-to-end technology functions for sears.com, kmart.com, craftsman.com and kenmore.com, which collectively generate more than $3 billion in annual e-Commerce revenue.
An engineer at heart and by training, Shailesh holds a BS in Computer Science from IIT, Mumbai, a MS in Computer Science from Clemson University, and an MBA from Georgia State University.
CEO, South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd
Gary Liu is CEO of South China Morning Post, a leading English-language media company covering China and Asia. Founded in 1903, SCMP is headquartered in Hong Kong and is the city’s newspaper of record. Along with its flagship news products, SCMP also publishes Hong Kong’s premier lifestyle and fashion magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Elle Men, Esquire and Cosmopolitan. Prior to joining SCMP in January 2017, Gary was CEO of Digg, spearheading the New York startup’s transformation from aggregator to a data-driven news platform. Previously, Gary was Head of Spotify Labs, where he led emerging technologies and business strategies for Spotify’s global markets, after joining as Global Director of Ad Product Strategy. Gary has also worked at AOL and Google.
Born in the United States, Gary grew up in Taiwan and New Zealand, before returning to the American Northeast where he lived and worked for 20 years. He currently lives in Hong Kong with his wife Katrina, a pediatric dentist. Gary is an Economics graduate from Harvard University.
Media Innovation Strategist, Berlin
Robb Montgomery is a journalism professor, consultant and serial entrepreneur based in Berlin, Germany. He is the author of two books on visual storytelling and the founder of several businesses including Visual Editors, Montgomery Multimedia and the Smart Film School.
Montgomery is a former visual editor for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. He redesigned the San Francisco Examiner in 2005 and has led innovation projects throughout his career.
Montgomery teaches Mobile Journalism and Design Thinking at several European universities and is the author of “A Field Guide for Mobile Journalism” (iTunes) and “Smartphone Filmmaking” (Taylor & Francis).
He has two best-seller courses on Udemy (Smartphone Filmmaking and Mobile Journalism) and founded the Smart Film School in 2015 to provide certificate training resources for schools and organizations.
Media Consultant, Denmark
Steffen Damborg (MBA) is a digital transformation specialist with over 10 years of experience in all aspects of running an online business in the media industry. He is a former Digital Director and Chief Development Officer at the leading Danish Publisher, JP/Politikens Hus, and is currently focusing on Digital Transformation for global media organisations accrued from his knowledge of working extensively in the European market.
Social Media Consultant and Founder of Social Video Company, HashtagOurStories, UK
Sumaiya Omar is a social media consultant and founder of social video company HashtagOurStories. She specializes in outsourcing video post-production services to emerging markets, reducing costs for media houses and easing digital workflows so creatives can focus on telling better stories.
Sumaiya has spent the last five years experimenting with emerging news platforms like Snapchat and Instagram in South Africa, India and the UK and has conducted mobile journalism workshops with broadcasters across Europe.
Co-Founder, Scroll, USA
Sachin Doshi is the Co-Founder of Scroll.com, a startup that wants to roll up a selection of stories from a wide variety of publishers and sell monthly subscriptions. Their mission is to enable frictionless access to a thriving free press.
Before Scroll, Sachin was VP of Content and Distribution at Spotify. He graduated from Rutgers University with a BS in Computer Science and Economics.
Founder & CEO, HKcNews.com, Hong Kong
Daisy Li is CEO and founder of the website hkcnews.com. She was previously in charge of action news for Taiwan's Apple Daily.
CEO, DB Digital, India
Gyan Gupta is the Chief Executive Officer of DB Digital, the digital arm of Dainik Bhaskar Group.In less than 10 years of its inception, DB Digital has become the 2nd Largest Digital Group in the country with more than 101 Million Unique Users and an expanded portfolio from News to Business, Entertainment, Fashion & Lifestyle, Sports, Food and Gadgets. The flagship website DainikBhaksar.com is the World’s Largest Hindi News Site and the Second Largest News Site in India, while the other properties by DB Digital like Divya Bhaskar, Money Bhaskar, Bollywood Bhaskar and Divya Marathi are leaders in their respective genres. He comes with 18 years of exhaustive experience in media, digital content and technology; handling multiple profiles including Business Development, Marketing & Pre-Sales, Delivery & Operations. He has been instrumental in conceptualizing multiple unique features and properties and introducing many path-breaking initiatives for the brand.
Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, UK
Dr Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is Director at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and serves as Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics.
His work focuses on changes in the news media, on political communication, and the role of digital technologies in both. He has done extensive research on journalism, American politics, and various forms of activism, and a significant amount of comparative work in Western Europe and beyond.
Chief Digital and Publishing Officer, Nine, Australia
Chris is Chief Digital and Publishing Officer at Nine (prev Fairfax Media). Prior to this appointment he was Managing Director of Australian Metro Publishing, and Director of Publishing Innovation. In his current role, Chris oversees The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, nine.com.au, and 9Now.
Chris was previously the founding CEO of HuffPost Australia, a joint venture between The Huffington Post and Fairfax Media, and has more than 20 years' experience building market-leading digital media businesses. He was also the founding CEO of Allure Media, one of Australia's largest independent digital publishers, and responsible for launching Business Insider, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, POPSUGAR and ShopStyle in Australia.
Chris' previous experience includes senior editorial roles at News Corp and production company Endemol Southern Star.
Chief Operating Officer, WAN-IFRA, Germany
Thomas Jacob was appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of WAN-IFRA in 2012. He is responsible for developing and implementing the organization’s strategy to be a platform for exchange of ideas, information and experiences among the global news publishing industry. Prior to this Jacob was the Deputy CEO, taking care of regional operations.
Prior to WAN-IFRA, Jacob worked for DMG Media, publisher of Daily Mail and Metro in the United Kingdom. As the International Development Director, he identified and evaluated digital media companies in Asia for potential acquisition. He also conceptualized and launched a compact midmarket newspaper, Mail Today, for the Indian market as a JV with the India Today Group.
Jacob is an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. As a summa cum laude, he is also a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, an honor society for management in the United States.
He is a trained engineer in electronics and telecommunications, having graduated with distinction from the National Institute of Technology, Suratkal, in India.
Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Francis L.F. Lee (PhD, Stanford University, 2003) is Director and Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the lead or sole author of Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 2018), Talk Radio, the Mainstream Press and Public Opinion in Hong Kong (Hong Kong University Press, 2014), and Media, Social Mobilization, and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong (Routledge, 2011). He is the Chief Editor of the Chinese Journal of Communication and associate editor of Mass Communication & Society. He also serves on the editorial boards of eight international journals in the field of media and communication studies.
CEO & Young Audiences Consultant, Connections, France
As CEO of Aralynn A.A. McMane Connections, she helps news organizations and nonprofits that want to better reach, serve and build the loyalty of today’s youngest audiences, members of the generation that came after millennials, and their influencers. Her work uses the tenets of professional newsgathering as a basis and focuses on an international framework.
Current clients include Ouest-France (France) and Community Media Forum Europe (Belgium) and NewseumED (USA). Also, she is involved in two pro bono projects: advising UNESCO's Global Alliance for Media and Information Literacy Partnerships and, as a board member, helping News Decoders-Nouvelles Découvertes, a not-for-profit based in Paris that offers a news service and global forum for young millennials and secondary school students to learn about international affairs and engage in a borderless conversation about important matters of the day.
Previously, she was executive director for youth engagement and news literacy at WAN-IFRA where she most recently completed the reportNews Literacy and News Publishers: 7 ways forward to help young audiences fight fake news and do much, much more. That 2017 report, commissioned by the American Press Institute, gathers intelligence about a wide variety of smart practice in 40 countries, focusing on the generation younger than millennials. At WAN-IFRA, she helped news publishers and news associations determine how best to interact with young people and their influencers in ways that furthered both news businesses and democracy. She also ran WAN-IFRA's ground-breaking initial media development work in Africa and Europe.
She has been a reporter and editor at newspapers in the U.S. and France and a journalism educator and researcher in the U.S., France and Bulgaria. She served on the board of the European Journalism Centre, based in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and Brussels, Belgium. Among her favorite past jobs is stint as the light and sound technician for The Exotic Kaena at the Kon Tiki bar in Lake George, New York. Her degrees are from SUNY Albany (B.A.) Syracuse University (M.A.) and Indiana University (Ph.D).
Director, CNN Digital Asia, Hong Kong
Marc Lourdes is Director of CNN Digital Asia. Based in Hong Kong, Lourdes leads CNN Digital’s Asia team across editorial content and multiplatform programming for CNN’s global audience during the Asian time zone. Lourdes works closely with CNN’s digital teams in London, Abu Dhabi, New York and Atlanta and as the digital leader in Asia-Pacific, he is responsible for devising and implementing strategies to grow key audiences in the region.
Marc Lourdes was appointed in April 2016 – just weeks after CNN announced a major digital expansion. CNN is significantly increasing its global digital footprint by creating an additional 200 jobs plus enhancing its products and technologies, with a specific focus on mobile and video.
Before joining CNN Lourdes worked at Yahoo! for five years, most recently as Editor in Chief of Yahoo Singapore. He has spent more than a decade as a journalist and editor, working at publications like The Star and New Straits Times in Malaysia and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Missouri, among others.
Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, comScore
Joe Nguyen is Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific at comScore, a leading cross-platform measurement company that measures audiences, brands and consumer behaviour everywhere.
With more than 20 years in the online analytics and media industries in the Asia Pacific region, Joe has experience in panel-based audience measurement as well as advanced data analytics on the user and vendor sides. He actively contributes to key digital, media and technology conferences and publications across the region. In addition, he is the co-founder of iamWednesday Singapore, and is currently on the Interactive Advertising Bureau Singapore leadership council and Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific board of directors.
Prior to comScore, Joe was the Southeast Asia regional manager for Omniture where he successfully delivered its product suites across diverse industries. He previously served as the director of global e-commerce at Millennium & Copthorne Hotels where he grew global online sales by 50 percent.
Joe holds a BSE degree in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University. He was born in Vietnam and emigrated to the United States after spending a year in a Malaysian refugee camp.
Editor, Mashable, Singapore
Victoria Ho is Mashable's editor in Singapore, responsible for launching Mashable's Asia arm. A business and technology reporter for over a decade, she's previously worked for Singapore Press Holdings, TechCrunch and CBS Interactive. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band.
Executive Director, Digital Business/ International Affairs, The Asahi Shimbun, Japan
Executive Director of Digital Business/International Affairs at The Asahi Shimbun. An eminent journalist graduated from the faculty of Arts and Sciences, Tokyo University. Visiting Scientist at the Center for Civic Media at MIT Media Lab from 2013 to 2014 . She developed her career in the digital media at The Asahi Shimbun since 1999.
Senior Global Business Correspondent, Voice TV, Thailand
Mike Raomanachai is a Technology Anchor and Senior Technology Correspondent for Voice TV, a tv network in Bangkok, Thailand. He graduated with a Master Degree in Multimedia Communications at Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA, where he is inspired by technology industry in Silicon Valley. Mike is also a multimedia journalist who has been working on new reporting platforms such as live streaming and live blogging for the past 7 years
Mike also serves as Asian American Journalists' Association, Asia Chapter (AAJA-Asia)'s Vice President, representing Southeast Asia. He helps organizing the chapter's annual regional media conference "N3" as a programming co-chair. He also takes a responsibility as a board member of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT), the largest press club of Southeast Asia.
Head of News & Publishing Partnerships, APAC, Google
Kate Beddoe is the head of news and publishing partnerships in APAC. Prior to joining Google in July 2015 she had been working in the Australian media industry for over 20 years, the last 15 in digital roles in both pure digital business and traditional media companies.
Her focus is on bringing the best of Google to news and publishing partners in the region and making sure that the unique needs of the region are well reflected in Google’s approach to the news ecosystem.
As a former journalist in magazine and digital newsrooms Kate is committed to using storytelling to drive real business outcomes, for Google and it’s news partners in APAC. In her time she's created new teams, walked in to manage old ones, owned P&Ls and operated in environments where she had influence but no control. All of which makes her excited and empathic to the challenges faced in the modern news ecosystem.
When not working, Kate enjoys to spend time with her husband and two amusing children; travelling and perfecting the mix of a good espresso martini.
Founder & CEO, The Splice Newsroom, Singapore
Alan Soon co-founded The Splice Newsroom, a business intelligence service covering the transformation of media in Asia. Splice delivers insights into the shifting media trends through its reporting, newsletters, research and events.
Alan is Asia’s leading expert on newsroom operations, digital transformation, and building the new business of media. He also advises early-stage media-tech startups.
For more than twenty years, Alan has worked in radio, television, news wires, magazine, and online across Asia, giving him unique insight into how various newsrooms get things done—and where they get stuck. He started his career as a reporter and grew into other operational roles — producer, editor, newsroom manager — and eventually led one of the largest digital news teams in the industry as Yahoo’s Managing Editor for India and Southeast Asia.
Chief Editor, The Jakarta Post, Indonesia
Endy M. Bayuni is chief editor of The Jakarta Post, Indonesia’s leading independent English language newspaper.
He has held his current position since August 2004, having worked his way up the newspaper’s career ladder since 1991. His previous stints in the newspaper included production manager/night editor, national editor, managing editor and deputy chief editor.
Mr. Bayuni writes regular and widely read columns in the newspaper commenting on the Indonesian domestic politics, including political Islam and foreign policy conduct. The Jakarta Post is part of a small circle of critical but constructive media in Indonesia. The unprecedented freedom of speech and freedom of the media that came after the downfall of President Soeharto’s regime in 1998 has allowed the press in Indonesia to play its role as the fourth estate, providing democratic checks and balances on the government. Mr. Bayuni and his editorial team have been pushing the envelope through the newspaper’s vigorous reporting. He began his career as a cub reporter for The Jakarta Post in 1983, and between 1984 and 1991 worked as the Indonesian correspondent, initially for Reuters and later for Agence France Presse (AFP).
Mr. Bayuni was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2003/4 where he spent a considerable time attending classes at the Kennedy School of Government. He was a Jefferson Fellow at the East West Center in the fall of 1999. He has a bachelor of arts degree in economics which he received in 1981 from Kingston University in Surrey, UK. He is an expert of Global Expert Finder, a project of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.
News Partnerships India, Twitter, India
A writer and journalist with about 15 years of experience, Amrita Tripathi is presently working as Acting Manager, News Partnerships at Twitter India.
Amrita was formerly senior news anchor at CNN-IBN, special correspondent, foreign affairs, Health Editor and Books Editor, foreign correspondent, and magazine columnist. She has hosted and produced several half-hour shows, anchored live news for close to a decade.
VP, Commercial Partnerships, APAC, Dow Jones
Joe Martin is Vice President of commercial partnerships at Dow Jones in APAC. He is responsible for driving digital membership growth for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones through strategic partnerships.
Previously, Joe was Senior Relationship Manager for The Wall Street Journal and Financial News based in London where he oversaw the corporate sales operation across EMEA. Joe first started at Dow Jones in 2012 before relocating to Hong Kong in 2015 where he is now based.
Editor, New Naratif
Kirsten Han is a Singaporean freelance journalist whose work often revolves around the themes of social justice, human rights, politics and democracy. Her bylines have appeared in publications like The Guardian, Asia Times, Southeast Asia Globe and Waging Nonviolence, covering a range of stories such as labour exploitation, LGBT equality and free speech. As an activist, Kirsten advocates for an end to the death penalty in Singapore, and is a founding member of abolitionist group We Believe in Second Chances.
Chief Commercial & Digital Officer, Mediacorp, Singapore
Parminder joined Mediacorp in March 2017 as the Chief Commercial and Digital Officer, driving commercialisation and digital efforts in the company.
As a seasoned business leader with top management experience across Asia Pacific & Middle East in organisations such as Twitter, Google, Apple and IBM, Parminder has an established track record of growing businesses by combining expertise in internet technologies with deep consumer insights.
On the humanitarian front, Parminder is a founding member of @incrisisrelief, one of the largest citizen-led disaster relief technology initiatives.
Director, Asia, WAN-IFRA APAC
Joon-Nie leads the WAN-IFRA APAC team in Singapore. A lawyer by training, Joon-Nie spent over 15 years in broadcast television as a reporter, interactive producer, current affairs producer and news editor at Channel News Asia and its predecessors SBC News and TCS News. She has won several in-house awards for reporting, executive producing and best ‘live’ coverage and a Student Emmy for her Masters documentary project produced at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism while under a fellowship from MediaCorp.
In her seven years teaching at Nanyang Technological University, Joon-Nie set up and headed Newsplex Asia, a US$700,000 convergent training newsroom and media lab in partnership with WAN-IFRA.
Besides being a Vice-President of the Singapore Press Club for over 16 years and co-founding the Hacks/Hackers Singapore chapter in 2015, Joon-Nie is also a regular speaker and trainer at conferences, workshops and industry panels both locally and abroad.
Founder & CEO, IDN Media, Indonesia
Winston Utomo is the Founder & CEO at IDN Media, the leading media-tech and content platform for Millennials and Gen Z in Indonesia. IDN Media operates IDN Times, Popbela.com, Popmama.com, Yummy, GGWP.ID, Duniaku.com, IDN Creative, IDN Event, and IDN Creator Network. IDN Media's vision is to democratize information Millennials and Gen Z.
Prior to joining IDN Media, Winston worked at Google in Singapore and St. John Capital in San Francisco. He graduated from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, for his Bachelor's degree and Columbia University, New York, for his Master's degree.
Head, Sales Strategy & Operations, SPH, Singapore
Ms. Su Lin Tan has been Head of Sales Strategy & Operations at Singapore Press Holdings Limited since September 5, 2016. Ms. Tan served as Deputy Head of New Digital Division at Singapore Press Holdings Limited from January 2014 to September 5, 2016. Previously, she served as the Head of Cats Classified.
Global Head of Product, Reuters
Sue Brooks has worked with editorial content her entire career and reported for newspapers, radio and TV in the UK before putting her knowledge to use as a product expert. She has held editorial roles at the BBC, Associated Press, Channel 4 and ITN where she edited the flagship News at Ten. She joined Reuters in 2015 as Global Head of Product.
She is a Columbia School of Journalism Sulzberger Fellow.
Managing Editor, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland
Kimmo Pietinen is managing editor of Helsingin Sanomat responsible for strategy. Helsingin Sanomat is the national newspaper of Finland with a strong digital presence. Kimmo has held various posts in Sanoma corp. since 1986 and has been managing editor since 2001.
Editor-in-Chief, The Straits Times & SPH's English/Malay/Tamil Media Group, Singapore
Warren Fernandez joined the paper in 1990 as a political reporter and rose to become a News Editor. He went on to serve as Foreign Editor and Deputy Editor.
Fernandez then joined Royal Dutch Shell in 2008 as a Global Manager for its Future Energy Project, before returning to the paper in February 2012 as its Editor. He assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Press Holdings’ (SPH) English/Malay/Tamil Media group (EMTM) from July 2016.
Fernandez graduated with First Class Honours from Oxford University, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He also holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Professor of Media & Communication and Head of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
Sun Sun Lim (PhD, LSE) is Professor of Media & Communication and Head of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She studies the social implications of technology domestication by young people and families, charting the ethnographies of their media use. She also conducts research on new media literacies, with a special focus on literacy challenges in parental mediation and young people’s internet skills. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Asia including in China, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam. Her latest books include Mobile Communication and the Family: Asian Experiences in Technology Domestication (Springer, 2016) and Asian Perspectives on Digital Culture: Emerging Phenomena, Enduring Concepts (Routledge, 2016). She serves on the editorial board of eight journals. See www.sunsunlim.com
Director, Media Freedom, WAN-IFRA
Andrew has worked for over 10 years as a journalist and editor in the UK, Spain and France. He has been with WAN-IFRA since the beginning of 2010 and was previously responsible for editorial and communications in the Press Freedom and Media Development team.
Based at the organisation’s Paris secretariat, he has worked in a number of countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia as part of WAN-IFRA's on-going efforts to defend press freedom and support independent news publishers.
Founder & CEO, INKL
Managing Director, WAN-IFRA South Asia
Magdoom Mohamed joined WAN-IFRA as Business Development Manager, and grew up through several positions to Managing Director in April 2008. He is responsible for WAN-IFRA’s business in South Asia. He also guided WAN-IFRA’s entry into the Middle East during a brief stint in 2008.
Before joining WAN-IFRA, he was with The Times of India group, managing the local brand of the group in Chennai.
An MBA from Madras University, Magdoom did a Senior Management Programme at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India’s premier B-School. He followed it up with a Media Leadership Programme at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad in 2010.
Director Asia, WAN-IFRA
Gilles Demptos is Director, Asia, of WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. In this position, he heads WAN-IFRA's Singapore-based subsidiary activities in Asia Pacific. One of the organisation's core mission is to support traditional news media publishers in their transition from print to digital through consulting, research, publications, events and training services.
Prior to his present position, Gilles was Director of Publications and Events at WANIFRA Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. He was also the Editor of the bi-monthly business magazine for the Asian news publishing industry, Asian Newspaper Focus, which is distributed in over 20 countries.
With 14 years experience in the news media industry, Gilles started his carrier in the press department of the European Commission Representation in Madrid, Spain. He joined the IFRA organisation as Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal in 2002 and has been since then a regular speaker at news media events in Europe, America and Asia.
Co-founder & CEO, Antsomi
Serm Teck Choon (Serm) is a digital evangelist who is passionate about using digital to help businesses transform.
Serm is the co-founder & CEO of Antsomi, a marketing technology company building the first artificial intelligence-enabled customer data platform, CDP 365, in Southeast Asia, empowering companies to unify and activate their customer data.
Serm was President of the Malaysian Digital Association (MDA) from Mar 2016 till Apr 2020. Serm was also former Malaysia Country Head at CtrlShift.
Before he joined CtrlShift, Serm was Digital Products Head at Star Media Group, a listed media company in Malaysia. He played a key role in building its digital business as one of the key growth areas for the media group.
Working for CtrlShift, Serm oversaw CtrlShift Malaysia's operation and led product initiatives and strategic partnerships regionally. Serm launched AMP, Asia's first multi-publisher, multi-geography marketplace for premium inventory. Serm also played a crucial role in commercializing CtrlShift's flagship product, The Hub, an enterprise advertising software.
As one of the founding members of MDA, Serm actively involves in industry initiatives. He launched the Malaysian audience measurement currency under MDA in 2010, while he also helped Audit Bureau of Circulations Malaysia (ABC Malaysia) to launch ePaper auditing in 2013.
Serm was elected as President of MDA in Mar 2016 and Apr 2018, respectively. He worked closely with MDA members and industry leaders to drive MDA's key initiatives, such as digital measurement standards, Digital Wednesday, MDA School, Best Practices Reports, MDA Video Series, and d Awards.
Serm is an active industry thought leader and is regularly invited by regional and Malaysian media to share his views on the latest digital trends and developments. He is also a sought-after speaker in digital-related conferences, and mentor/judge for start-up competitions
