Y&R today announced the promotion of Annie Boo to Chief Executive Officer Y&R China, across all offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
Named among Campaign Asia Pacific’s Women to Watch 2016, Boo became the network’s youngest leader when she was named Managing Director of Y&R Shanghai early in 2015. As national Chief Executive Officer Y&R China she will also oversee Beijing and Guangzhou to ensure a more connected countrywide operation. Boo works alongside creative partner Ong Kien Hoe, who was named national Executive Creative Director late in 2016.
Under Annie and Kien’s co-piloting effort, Y&R Shanghai was ranked top 3 most creative agency in APAC and top 2 most effective agency network 2016. The agency’s business has continued to grow under Boo’s leadership with flourishing client relationships and new business categories won.
In the newly-created role of CEO Y&R China, Annie Boo is tasked with investing in and sharing resources, raising Y&R profile, driving collaboration to win new business, developing new agency skills and ultimately helping growth and profitability.
Having graduated in law with an LLB honors degree, Annie’s real career started as a young account person moving rapidly up the ranks to become the regional account lead for Tiger Beer Global led out of the Y&R Malaysia office. She broadened her agency experience by moving to Shanghai as the lead for a wide group of accounts including B2B, international fmcg brands like Pepsi beverages and Fonterra. A stint as Client Services Director at JWT back in her native Malaysia, was followed by her return to Shanghai, and Y&R in 2015.
Y&R’s Global President David Patton said, “Annie is renowned for her passion and bravery, as someone who will always fight for what the agency believes in. She has ably demonstrated her leadership qualities at Y&R Shanghai which, both creatively and revenue-wise, has been growing strongly. By unifying the many talents of our offices in China, we move ever closer toward Y&R’s goal of achieving our ‘sweet-spot’ where creative, technology, strategy and data meet.”
Commenting on her new role Y&R China CEO Annie Boo said, “These are exciting times for Y&R in China, as we continue to build our new offerings, and we strive toward more integration – of agency capabilities within each office and now across all three. There is much to gain from our offices working more closely together in key areas such as social, digital and production investment. Together with Y&R Beijing’s Luis da Rosa and Y&R Guangzhou’s Michael Xia, we look forward to building an even stronger, more connected Y&R China team.”