Dentsu Aegis appoints Ken Hong to lead China CRM businesses

Today, Dentsu Aegis Network China announces that Ken Hong has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer, across the CRM line of business reporting jointly to Michelle Lau, CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network China and Zhengda "Z" Shen, APAC CRM CEO and president of Merkle. The CRM line of business in China brings together the leading performance marketing agency Merkle and B2B agency DWA. Merkle China operates from hubs in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing with over 400 data engineers, performance media specialists and data scientists. The DWA China business provides specialist media and marketing services for B2B companies and operates from Beijing, with Leon Liu as Managing Director. 

Ken Hong will lead the group focus on creating tech implementation, customer and digital transformation across AdTech, MarTech, commerce operations, CRM and loyalty platforms, supported by strong data and analytics.  Zhengda “Z” Shen, APAC CRM CEO and president of Merkle said: “Ken has been a great leader and made significant impact on our China business since he joined Merkle a year ago, I’m extremely excited about his newly expanded role and confident in his ability to lead our CRM line of business, a critical pillar of Dentsu's growth strategy in China.”

Michelle Lau, Dentsu Aegis Network China CEO said:  “I’m delighted to confirm Ken as the lead for our CRM business in China.  His diverse background is well placed to support Merkle and DWA’s continued growth. With executive leadership now established across our three lines of business (creative, media and CRM), we have moved ahead in our journey to make us simpler to navigate.  This new structure is designed so we are more closely built around client needs—to win, keep and grow their best customers—by being data-driven, tech-enabled and ideas-led.”

Ken Hong joined Merkle China in 2019, first as Growth Officer and then as Managing Director, leading Merkle’s local business.  Hong has spent the last seven years with Sina Weibo, one of the largest social media platforms in China with over 500 million Monthly Active Users. Over the years, Ken has led the platform’s commercial operations and helped grow its annual advertising revenue from US$65 million to over US$1.5 billion. More recently, he was leading the Corporate Strategy team for the Sina Group.

Prior to moving to the tech platform side, Hong spent eight years with digital marketing agencies including Razorfish and Digitas. He started his agency life from the data analytics track, then became the VP of Strategy and Analytics for Razorfish Seattle, before moving to China and becoming the Managing Director for both Razorfish and Digitas China.

Speaking about his appointment, Ken Hong, CEO CRM China, said: “2020 has been a year of major disruption for marketing, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has  heightened focus on first-party data and the need for brands to adjust their marketing strategies to deliver the total customer experience – from marketing to sales to service.  Our new structure helps us to bring a sharper focus around our world-class services and integrated solutions. I’m looking forward to working closely with Michelle and the team here to ensure we are better able to help our clients realise long-term, sustainable growth in China.”