J. Walter Thompson Manila Promotes Golda Roldan to Managing Director

Golda Roldan has been promoted to Managing Director of J. Walter Thompson Manila after a stellar stretch in which the office gained significant new business and won a slew of awards.

The promotion, with immediate effect, comes after two years of double-digit growth for the office.

“She is a rare combination of a good suit with excellent creative assessment,” said Bob Hekkelman, J. Walter Thompson’s Southeast Asia CEO. “Her passion for people and her appetite for good creative work made the Manila office a more exciting place to work.”

Said Roldan: “I am humbled and grateful to work with an amazing team beside me. I am proud to be part of an agency who is committed to create pioneering ideas that solve human challenges and privileged to collaborate with clients who believe in what we do.”

Roldan’s willingness to get down in the trenches, rally her team, and extract the best work from them has resulted in a string of awards this year at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards, Spikes Asia, Tambuli Awards and WARC Prize for Asian Strategy. 

The team’s KITKAT Breaker Benches campaign, which placed 500 whimsical benches around Metro Manila – including a see-saw bench and bench with working piano keys, helped propel KITKAT to the country’s top-selling chocolate and garnered 10 awards for J. Walter Thompson Manila.

Roldan first joined J. Walter Thompson Manila 2006, then left in 2010 to work at Leo Burnett.  She rejoined J. Walter Thompson in 2013 and was promoted to General Manager in February 2015.  She is active in the industry and is currently President of the country’s 4As, and the Overall Chairman for the 20Th 4As Philippines AOY Awards taking place in 2017.