Mindshare appoints Michael Beecroft as CIO, APAC

He will be based in Singapore and report to Ashutosh Srivastava, chairman and CEO of Mindshare AMEA, Russia and CIS.

Mindshare, the global media agency network and a part of WPP, has appointed Michael Beecroft as chief investment officer (CIO) for Mindshare - Asia Pacific. Beecroft will be based in Singapore and report to Ashutosh Srivastava, chairman and CEO of Mindshare AMEA, Russia and CIS.

In his new role, Beecroft will drive Mindshare’s trading and investment strategy for the region, leveraging GroupM’s advantages of scale and thought leadership in full for their clients. He will be working closely with Mindshare and GroupM trading teams in all local markets to ensure the agency provides their clients with access to quality local inventory, tools and data as the market increasingly moves to biddable and programmatic trading models.

Speaking about his new role, Beecroft says, “I’m tremendously excited to have the opportunity to both stay within GroupM and join such a power-house of an agency, one of such scale, but also continuously working towards leading industry change in media and technology.”

Beecroft has 20 years of digital and media investment experience, having spent the last 15 years at MEC across various senior local, regional and global positions. His last two roles were global head of digital trading and most recently, the chief investment officer for MEC-APAC. He has successfully led clients across all major categories in their evolution towards a more future-focused media investment management along with value creation.

Commenting on Beecroft's appointment, Srivastava says in a company statement, “(Michael) Beecroft joins us at a time in which the role of a CIO is in tremendous flux... His deep knowledge of digital as well as offline channels, keen business sense, and Asia experience make him the ideal candidate to lead our trading teams in the region.”

Beecroft will take the new role from January 1, 2018. He will work with regional media, data, and tech partners. He will further head up accountability teams, and will also be responsible for driving the supply side of Mindshare's adaptive marketing proposition, which includes the establishment of the newly-developed performance marketing FAST Hubs.