Sorrell Hires Former Colleague as APAC CEO

Sir Martin Sorrell's new marcoms business S4 Capital has hired his former WPP colleague Michel de Rijk for the role of Chief Executive Officer, APAC.

Six weeks after quitting WPP, founder Sorrell became head of shell company Derriston Capital, which has since been renamed S4 Capital in a reverse takeover deal, and now acts as a vehicle to buy marketing firms. Its first acquisition, of Dutch digital production company MediaMonks, took place in July, and S4 was publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange in September. Last week, S4 reported revenue of EUR 29.3m (£26.2m) in the three months ended 30th September: 45% more than that of MediaMonks in the prior year period.

MediaMonks already operates in APAC from Singapore and Shanghai offices and has plans to expand in China, India, Australia and Japan. To lead this regional expansion, organically and by acquisition, deRijk will take operational responsibility for the APAC operations of all S4-owned businesses across digital content, digital media planning and buying, and first party data. Most recently, he worked at WPP's media investment division GroupM as Global Chief Growth Officer at Performance Media Group. He was previously APAC President, leading the development of the [m]PLATFORM data, analytics and digital services suite of products; and earlier, he served as CEO, APAC for WPP's audience profiling and targeting division Xaxis. Before WPP, he worked for video and instream ad technologies company EyeWonder, latterly as VP, APAC.

Commenting on the appointment, Sorrell said: 'I'm delighted to welcome Michel to S4 Capital. He has the network and the skills to help MediaMonks and all of our future businesses in the region maintain impressive growth, while identifying further opportunities to grow by acquisition. No one could be more qualified to represent the S4 Capital difference'.

Web sites: www.s4capital.com and www.mediamonks.com .