WFA announces changes to global leadership team

March 16th 2016, Kuala Lumpur: Members of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) today unanimously appointed new members to the global leadership team, naming Sameer Desai, Head of Consumer Healthcare, Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Africa at Mundipharma, as Regional Vice-President for APAC and Achieng Butler, Chief Marketing Officer, Africa at Danone as Regional Vice-President for Africa.

The pair will serve one-year, renewable terms, helping to raise the profile of WFA across their respective regions. Their role is to encourage members to leverage the organization's ability to help marketers cut down on trial and error, build the network by encouraging more marketers from existing members to participate and highlight the benefits of membership to new brand owners.

The new regional Vice-Presidents join Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) who remains Vice-President for North America, Loïc Armand, Senior Vice-President, External Affairs, L'Oréal, Vice-President for Western Europe, Sergey Glushkov, President of the Russian Advertisers Association and Vice-President, Corporate Affairs, Eastern Europe at PepsiCo, who remains Regional Vice-President for Central and Eastern Europe, and Javier Medrano, Senior Vice-President Marketing, Grupo Bimbo and Vice-President for Latin America.

They will work closely with WFA President David Wheldon, CMO RBS, who enters the second year of his two-year term, and Deputy President, Matthias Berninger, Vice-President of Public Affairs at Mars.

The appointments were announced at the WFA's Annual General Meeting, held in Kuala Lumpur as part of the WFA's annual Global Marketer Week, which is being held in ASEAN for the first time.

Sameer has worked for a wide range of multinational companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Friesland Dairy Foods and Procter & Gamble before taking on the leadership of Mundipharma's first consumer healthcare venture.

Achieng has been in her present role at Danone since November 2015, having previously worked for Airtel Africa and Coca-Cola in senior, multi-country leadership roles, covering both English-speaking and Francophone markets.

The appointments were welcomed by Stephan Loerke, CEO of the WFA: "We are delighted to have two such dynamic individuals joining the WFA team. One of the main strengths of our organisation is the way that so many senior, knowledgeable executives are willing to share their time and insights with their peers to tackle the many challenges that marketers face in the digital age."

Alongside these two appointments, the WFA has also reinforced its already strong Executive Committee, made up of senior marketers and public affairs executives to reflect the dual mission of the WFA: to help marketers be more effective and efficient in terms of their marketing communications spend while helping brand owners protect and future-proof their license to operate through advocacy and effective self-regulation.

The new corporate members joining the board are:

Julie Chan, Global Consumer Engagement Lead, Pfizer;

Nicki Kenyon, VP, Digital & Marketing Transformation, APAC, Visa;

Christian Flouch, Head of Media, Global Connections, AB InBev;

David Oliver, Global Director, Public & Government Affairs, Mondelez;

Emmanuelle Wargon, VP Corporate Affairs, Danone;

David Arome Okeme, President of the Nigerian Advertisers Association (ADVAN) and Ritva Hanski-Pitkakoski, Managing Director of the Finnish Advertisers Association (ML) also join the board.

The Executive Committee meets quarterly to determine the WFA's priorities and guide the organisation's strategy.

The full list of Executive Committee members can be seen here.