Havas APAC Announces Senior Appointments on GSK Business

Havas Asia Pacific announces the appointment of Christian Pattman as Global Executive Client Director and Elissa MacDonald as Global Business Director for the newly acquired GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) business. 

In his new role, Christian will lead the overall GSK business in the region, while Elissa will be responsible for key brands globally and regionally. Both will operate out of the Singapore hub, one of Havas’ three GSK global hubs along with London and New York. Christian will jointly report into Mike Amour, CEO of Havas Group in APAC and Chris Slough, Global Business Partner of GSK at Havas while Elissa will report into Christian. 

Christian was most recently the Director of Healthcare for Havas APAC, based out of its Sydney office, and prior to that was in Havas Healthcare’s New York HQ. In the course of his career, he has worked on and launched global brands for numerous multinational companies such as Unilever, Nestle, Braun, Pfizer, Pernod Ricard, Sanofi Aventis, GSK, Reckitt Benckiser and Gillette.

Elissa joins Havas after a stint of three and a half years at Ogilvy & Mather, where she led the local, Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific business for IBM Digital and Performance Marketing. Prior to her work within an agency, Elissa worked client side with Hewlett-Packard for eight years focused on all things digital.

Commenting on the appointments, Mike Amour, CEO, Havas Group, APAC said: ”GSK has put in place an exciting plan to bring their new marketing vision to fruition and we feel privileged to be a part of it. I would like to welcome Christian and Elissa to the team. Christian’s experience within the pharma category and his substantial experience with our Havas Healthcare operation makes him the ideal leader for this role. He and Elissa both have strong digital credentials and considerable experience of running large global businesses”.

Havas was appointed GSK’s global digital and content partner in 2016, with a remit to manage end-to-end digital marketing, following a consolidation of agency roster by the company for its consumer healthcare business in July last year. In APAC, the agency will manage with 10 flagship brands of GSK across oral health, pain relief and respiratory categories.