Carat Malaysia promotes Karan Tyagi to general manager, names Kenneth Teh as head of digital and Zeeshan Khan joins as business director

Carat Malaysia has reinforced its senior leadership team with the promotion of Karan Tyagi to general manager. They have also named Kenneth Teh as head of digital, whilst Zeeshan Khan joins as business director

“Data, content, technology, and on-point execution – if an agency can effectively infuse these components together, it would be ripe to excel in this rapidly evolving media industry,” Karan Tyagi (pictured left), the newly appointed General Manager of Carat Malaysia stated in his opening remarks, as he addressed everyone at Carat’s monthly town hall session last week.

“And Carat is doing exactly just that – we are more than just a media agency when we remove barriers to collaboration through Dentsu Aegis Network’s unique operating model of a single P&L per market, enabling us to act as one business with many connected capabilities, and ultimately providing our clients seamless access to the full breadth of our agency,” Tyagi added.

Having built his forte through 13 years of handling account management and media planning and buying in a very complicated yet evolved market that is India, Tyagi joined Carat Malaysia as Business Director back in 2014 to work on key global client accounts such as Mondelez, Mastercard, and Wipro Unza to name a few.

His fast-tracked career saw him climb his way up to Deputy General Manager, and now General Manager. To this end, it is not surprising to note that he was handpicked to be enrolled into Dentsu Aegis Network’s elite ‘Route 500’ Global Leadership Development Programme, which aims to equip the network’s high-potential leaders with tools to accelerate and realise their career ambitions.

“Personally, I’m very grateful for this growth opportunity. I feel empowered to innovate and do even better, and of course, do good by my teams. I look forward to leading our talents and together chart a new chapter of growth for Carat Malaysia,” Tyagi said.

His promotion is attributed to his drive in continuously improving to stay ahead in this digital age – a trait which Lorraine Capel, Chief Executive Officer, Carat Malaysia feels is imperative in the next line of leaders.

“As the industry gets increasingly digitalised, we are transforming the way we work as well, though our focus remains on delivering real business value for our clients. Karan’s appointment today speaks of our company’s ‘new-age’ leadership through the lens of young and dynamic leaders, and is also a step towards future-proofing Carat,” Capel shared.

“He has demonstrated his strength in challenging the status quo and was also instrumental in securing new businesses for Carat in the past few months. That said, with his acute business acumen and charisma, I believe he will be an inspiration to our young talents,” she added.

In addition, Capel highlighted that Carat shares Dentsu Aegis Network’s vision to be a 100% digital economy business by 2020. To support this, Kenneth The (pictured centre) has been appointed to take on the role of Head of Digital, Carat Malaysia, whereby he is tasked to drive digital transformation for clients. He brings with him experience in developing a holistic digital approach for financial institutions to build presence, acquire new customers and grow revenues through the bank’s various digital channels.

Another addition to Carat Malaysia’s senior leadership team is Zeeshan Khan (pictured right) who joins as Business Director. A digital specialist and marketing communications professional, Khan brings with him more than 15 years of experience gained from both agency and client ecosystems. He has worked across various geographies and industries from the Middle East, Pakistan and Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, he was most recently the Director of Client Leadership at Mindshare, a GroupM company. He was managing high-billings portfolios such as telco (Digi), financial services (HSBC) and FMCG (Kimberly Clark and Nestle) with deep involvement across consumer insights, strategic planning and digital performance.

“We have a robust management team in place. Each of them brings diverse yet fresh perspective to the table, that will allow us to consistently deliver innovative and integrated solutions to elevate our clients’ businesses. There is plenty to look forward to, especially with 2018 on the horizon!” Capel concluded.