Michel de Rijk takes Executive of the Year for Advertising at SBR Management Excellence Awards

The CEO of S4 capital seeks to advance the science of consumer-centric communications.

Michel de Rijk, CEO, Asia Pacific, S4 Capital, took home the Executive of the Year at the SBR Management Excellence Awards, which is now in its sixth year.

The awards programme honours the country’s most outstanding business leaders, teams and individuals whose initiatives have resulted in substantial business gains for their company’s operations.

S4 Capital is disrupting the USD1.7 trillion advertising industry head-on in being the digital first, new era marketing business fueled by data, content and technology partner for millennial-driven businesses.

Michel de Rijk leads companies to develop and disrupt business practices through the science of consumer-centric communications. de Rijk is the head of S4Capital’s business in Asia–Pacific. He was hired to lead the new-era company after standing at the helm of Xaxis and GroupM’s Asian business and expansion. Michel served as CEO of Xaxis between 2012 and 2017 and acted as Global Chief Growth Officer of GroupM until the end of 2018.

In the first six months as APAC’s CEO, S4 Capital’s profits in the region recorded a 152% increase and continue to track on those lines for the second half.

The gains during the first half of the year can be attributed to S4 Capital’s two main divisions: company MediaMonks which runs its content practice and media consultancy firm MightyHive which focuses on the programmatic practice.

According to the financial statement, there has been strong individual content practice and programmatic practice client development in FMCG, pharmaceutical, media, financial services, telecommunications, hospitality, retail, sport and technology.

On de Rijk’s watch, Adobe platform development resources were added in Asia Pacific after S4’s content practice entered into an agreement to merge with BizTech, a global Adobe platform developer and a leading marketing transformation and customer experience company based in Melbourne. The transaction is expected to strengthen the content practice’s marketing cloud expertise and expand its geographical footprint, the S4’s financial statement added.

MightyHive’s first acquisition in Asia was with Datalicious Korea, a data and analytics consultancy. It’s a widely recognised expert in analytics and social media ROI measurement in a critical market where some of the largest, most innovative marketers in the world.

As recent as last week, S4 Capital’s MediaMonks merged with WhiteBalance, a creative design and content hotshop in Delhi and simultaneously launched MightyHive’s Mumbai operations, ending 2019 with 10 mergers across 23 markets with 2,000 colleagues.

Contrast S4 to the competitive landscape like Dentsu, Publicis, WPP, Omnicom, IPG, Havas where the major industry threat is the desire for clients to have a faster (more agile), better (tech-savvy) and cheaper (more efficient) approach. This is the kind of threat that all legacy companies or industries face with digital transformation. Uncontrolled public companies, like the six traditional holding companies, aren’t moving quickly enough – radical revolution and disruption is needed. Companies without the legacy structure and business model have a better shot, as they are agile and fast moving.

With momentum comes progress, and de Rijk was at the helm to oversee the first office integration of MediaMonks and MightyHive in Singapore, with further plans for London and New York.

In de Rijk’s recent creative exercise with brands, MediaMonks partnered with Puma to create the Run My Way campaign, an ode to embrace Shanghai’s unique and cultivating running culture.

“In our biggest Chinese installation project to date, Run My Way distances itself from other running experiences by celebrating the joy of running at any pace. Located on a busy Shanghai square, passersby can enter a custom-made pavilion and step on a treadmill surrounded by floor-to-ceiling screens. After customising their own puma avatar and running soundtrack through facial- and motion-tracking software, visitors can walk, jog or run to power their puma through 3 virtual environments. Combining eye-catching architecture with 3D modelling, we built both the physical and virtual experience to fashion a forward-thinking trialing campaign,” MediaMonks posted on its page.

The Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards was held on 26 November 2019 at the Conrad Centennial Singapore. Some of the previous winners include OCBC Bank, BreadTalk Group, AIA and Great Eastern Life Assurance.

The 2019 winners were judged by a panel consisting of Henry Tan, Group CEO & Chief Innovation Officer at NEXIA TS; David Chew, Executive Director, Risk Advisory at Deloitte Southeast Asia; Lim Wei Wei, Partner and Practice Leader, Governance and Risk at Baker Tilly TFW; Yang Eu Jin, Partner and Co-Head of Capital Markets Practice at RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP; and Pardeep Singh Khosa, Director at Davinder Singh Chambers LLC.

If you would like to join the 2020 awards and be awarded as one of the most outstanding management executives of Singapore, please email Julie Anne Nuñez at julie@charltonmediamail.com