ASEAN Digital Excellence & Operations Lead
About WPP Media
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Role Summary and Impact
The ASEAN Digital Excellence & Operations Lead will lead the digital media excellence agenda for one of our key FMCG clients across ASEAN. The role will ensure that global standards and priorities are translated into practical market action, while improving the quality of digital planning, execution, performance and governance across the region.
The role will also serve as the main ASEAN point of contact for GDS (Offshore), with end-to-end responsibility for the regional operating model, service quality, performance governance, market alignment and escalation management. Success will be measured by stronger digital outcomes, greater consistency across markets, improved GDS delivery and the ability to scale effective practices across ASEAN.
The existing regional digital operations scope has primarily focused on executional governance, compliance monitoring, market follow-up, selected platform coordination and escalation support. As OpenMind’s ASEAN digital agenda expands, the business requires a dedicated regional lead with broader accountability for digital quality, performance, GDS (Offshore) stewardship, platform relationships and market capability.
This role is therefore designed as a strategic expansion of the current operational remit, not simply an increase in capacity. It will create one accountable regional point of leadership to improve the consistency, effectiveness and scalability of digital media delivery across ASEAN.
Skills and Experience
1. ASEAN Digital Excellence and Strategic Leadership
- Set and lead the regional digital excellence agenda for OpenMind ASEAN, providing senior digital counsel on plans, platform choices and investment rationale aligned with client priorities.
- Challenge markets to move beyond cost and delivery metrics, incorporating quality, context, attention and outcome-based measures into planning and evaluation.
- Identify systemic digital challenges across markets and develop regional (not just market-level) solutions, maintaining a clear view of digital maturity, capability gaps and improvement priorities.
2. Digital Standards, Compliance and Executional Quality
- Own regional oversight of Digital Execution Standards (DES), Ad Technology Standards (ATS) and naming conventions, maintaining a scorecard that tracks performance, gaps and required actions by market.
- Move compliance management beyond score reporting by diagnosing root causes, agreeing market improvement plans, and coordinating resolution of priority execution escalations.
- Act as primary point of contact for client and global teams on digital standards, connecting compliance and quality to campaign performance and client confidence.
3. GDS Stewardship and Regional Operating Model
- Act as the main ASEAN point of contact and accountable owner for the GDS (Offshore) relationship, defining and continuously improving the operating model — scope, RACI, service expectations and escalation routes.
- Lead regional demand, capacity and transition planning for work moving into GDS (Offshore), overseeing market onboarding and knowledge transfer with minimal disruption.
- Track GDS delivery against quality, timeliness and satisfaction measures, leading root-cause reviews and consolidating market feedback into a single ASEAN improvement agenda that demonstrates delivered value.
4. Digital Performance Governance and Continuous Improvement
- Establish a consistent regional approach to reviewing digital performance across priority platforms, objectives and markets, identifying trends and opportunities requiring regional action.
- Guide markets on optimization priorities across paid social, search, video and programmatic, developing ASEAN benchmarks by platform, objective and market maturity.
- Create practical playbooks for recurring challenges, ensuring campaign learnings are documented, shared and applied across markets to strengthen measurement discipline.
5. Platform Partnerships and Test-and-Learn Agenda
- Lead regional working relationships with priority digital media platforms and technology partners, translating opportunities and product developments into relevant market actions.
- Ensure platform credits and value commitments are deployed against clear priorities, challenging recommendations to ensure they are evidence-based and aligned to business needs.
- Develop a structured regional test-and-learn agenda with clear hypotheses and measurement criteria, codifying successful tests for adoption across additional markets.
6. Global-to-Market Translation and Market Advocacy
- Act as the regional digital interface translating global frameworks, standards and priorities into clear ASEAN implementation plans, adapting guidance where needed for local maturity, ecosystem or regulation.
- Provide markets with one clear source of truth for digital operating guidance, consolidating market feedback and barriers for relevant regional or global stakeholders.
- Identify strong local practices and elevate them for regional or wider adoption, ensuring global initiatives are implemented consistently yet practically.
7. Stakeholder and Client Management
- Build trusted relationships with OpenMind regional and market stakeholders on digital quality, operations and GDS delivery, communicating complex topics in clear business language.
- Bring a proactive regional point of view to client discussions, ensuring decisions, risks and actions are documented and followed through across markets.
- Navigate a complex matrix of regional, market, platform and delivery stakeholders without direct authority, representing the ASEAN digital agenda with credibility and diplomacy.
Expected Deliverables in the First 12 Months
ASEAN digital excellence roadmap – A prioritized annual plan covering digital quality, performance, standards, capability and platform opportunities.
GDS operating model – Documented scope, RACI, service expectations, governance cadence, escalation process and market onboarding approach.
GDS performance scorecard – A consistent view of delivery quality, timeliness, accuracy, capacity, escalations and market satisfaction.
Regional digital standards scorecard – Consolidated visibility of DES, ATS, naming convention and related executional risks with agreed improvement plans.
Digital performance framework – A repeatable approach to reviewing priority market and platform performance, including relevant regional benchmarks.
Platform partnership plan – Clear priorities, commitments, tests and value delivery expectations for key digital partners.
Test-and-learn pipeline – A structured portfolio of tests with hypotheses, measures, owners, timelines and scaling decisions.
Key Performance Indicators
GDS (Offshore) delivery and governance: Success will be measured by achievement of agreed service levels for quality, timeliness and responsiveness; reduction in recurring errors, rework and escalations; improvement in market satisfaction with GDS (Offshore) delivery; and successful onboarding or expansion of agreed scopes.
Digital standards and quality: This includes measurable improvement in DES, ATS, naming convention and related compliance measures; completion and closure of market improvement plans; reduction in executional risk and repeated quality issues; and clear evidence that stronger standards are improving campaign delivery and client confidence.
Digital performance: Performance will be evaluated through improvement against agreed regional and market benchmarks; quality and effectiveness gains identified through regional performance reviews; clear recommendations implemented across priority markets and campaigns; and stronger use of quality, attention, context and outcome measures alongside efficiency metrics.
Platform and innovation value: This covers delivery of agreed partner commitments, resources and credits; the number and quality of structured tests completed; the percentage of successful tests codified and scaled; and documented value generated through platform partnerships.
Expected Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business, media, digital, communications or a related discipline.
- Typically 8–10+ years of experience in digital media, performance marketing, biddable media, digital operations or platform strategy.
- At least 2-3 years of experience in a regional, multi-market or complex matrix role.
- Strong agency experience is required; FMCG or other high-volume consumer category experience is highly desirable.
- Demonstrated experience overseeing digital media standards, operational governance and performance improvement across multiple markets.
- Experience working with offshore, centralized or shared-service delivery models; direct GDS or hub-governance experience is strongly preferred.
- Strong working knowledge of major digital platforms, including Google, Meta, TikTok, programmatic ecosystems and relevant Southeast Asian media platforms.
- Experience managing senior client, market, platform and operational stakeholders without direct authority.
- Strong commercial awareness, including the ability to assess resource models, service quality, efficiency and value delivery.
Core Skills and Knowledge
- Strong digital media strategy, planning and performance marketing judgment, with the ability to...