J. Walter Thompson China restructures with Norman Tan leaving and Lo Sheung Yan to take back creative responsibility of China market

J. Walter Thompson’s North Asia Chief Creative Officer Norman Tan (pictured on left) is leaving the network and an internal restructure sees Lo Sheung Yan (Mayan) assume country-wide creative responsibility.

Based in Shanghai, Lo Sheung Yan’s focus will shift from pan-regional across APAC to a greater emphasis on the China market. He assumes responsibility for a creative team that, earlier this year, welcomed new digital Executive Creative Directors David Chee in Shanghai and Leo Liu in Beijing. Polo Wu was also named country-wide Head of Digital.

J. Walter Thompson China recently announced a raft of new business wins across MengNiu, Dicos, NetEase, Skechers, Healthy Care and Oriental YuHong Waterproof Technology, covering creative strategy, integrated branding, digital and social media.

Tan is stepping down after almost 4 years in his current role, and over a decade with the network over the years. Based in Shanghai since 2005, including tenure as CCO with Bates and Lowe China, he helped the agencies win iconic accounts and created many popular campaigns including Heineken, Tmall, Alipay and Buick China. In 2015, Gunn Report & Good Report respectively rated Buick’s ‘Human Traffic Signs’ as the Most-Awarded Print and No. 1 Social Responsibility Campaign.

And as Southeast Asia ECD back in the early noughties, Tan was instrumental in bringing J. Walter Thompson’s Malaysia, Singapore and Bangkok offices to creative prominence including Cannes, Gunn Report and 4A’s success.

Since joining China’s advertising industry with J. Walter Thompson in 1996, Mayan has helped JWT garner many prestigious regional and global advertising awards, including ‘Network Agency of the Year’ at AdFest and Spikes, plus Adfest and Campaign Asia Pacific ‘Agency of the Year’. He has driven many firsts for China’s advertising industry, including winning the country’s very first Cannes Grand Prix, and as the first Chinese head of Cannes’ Outdoor Jury. In 2016 Mayan was named a ‘Lotus Legend’ by Adfest.

“It’s great to be, once again, focusing on the China market that has been such a huge part of my life in advertising” said Mayan (pictured above on right). “While I’m looking forward to the role, I’m sad to be bidding farewell to Norman – a longtime-colleague, sometime rival, but overall my good friend. I’m also a bit jealous of his travel plans.”

Tan said: “I’ve spent nearly half my career with J. Walter Thompson, from Taiwan to Southeast Asia, then North Asia. And after 14 years in China, and at the risk of sounding cliched, I’m looking forward to ticking off a few things on my bucket-list, spending some quality time with my wife, family and friends, and moving on to my new chapter in life.”