JWT APAC Appoints Carter Chow as China CEO

J. Walter Thompson Asia Pacific CEO John Gutteridge today appointed Carter Chow to the role of China CEO, and promoted George Shi to the position of Managing Director of J. Walter Thompson Shanghai.

Chow has over 22 years’ experience in China’s high-paced, fast-changing advertising industry.  He joins J. Walter Thompson from McCann, where he was Chief Marketing Officer for McCann Worldgroup Greater China.  Prior to that role, he served as Managing Director of McCann Shanghai, and Managing Director at Y&R Shanghai.   Chow’s appointment marks a return to J. Walter Thompson China, where he worked as a Group Account Director 10 years ago.  He holds an MBA from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, and a BSc from the University of Alberta.  

“Carter has the perfect blend of local & international expertise. He has an intimate understanding of what it takes to grow brands in China, but he also has a very global perspective on culture and commerce.  He is innovative and enterprising, which fits perfectly with the future of our business,” said Gutteridge.

During his time at McCann and Y&R, Chow was integral in leading a range of domestic and multinational accounts, including Colgate-Palmolive, L'Oréal Paris and Maybelline, Bank of Communications, China Mobile, Qualcomm, Coca Cola and many more.  While at Y&R, he also played an essential role in setting up Red Fuse China, a dedicated ‘Team WPP’ to service Colgate-Palmolive.

Chow, who starts on January 2, will oversee J. Walter Thompson’s offices in Shanghai, where he will be based, and in Beijing. He will report to Gutteridge and work closely with Norman Tan, J. Walter Thompson’s China Chairman and North Asia Chief Creative Officer. 

Shi, meanwhile, will assume the role of Managing Director for the Shanghai office.  Shi studied Marketing at the University of the Arts in London, returning to China in 2004 to work at TBWA China and later, at J. Walter Thompson Shanghai, before taking a client-side marketing role at Anta, one of China’s biggest sports brands. He rejoined J. Walter Thompson in 2013, where he tripled the agency’s roster of domestic clients and helped build out the agency’s digital and content marketing team.