Mark Gabriel Chaves returns to Dentsu Network in Head of Media role for Dentsu Philippines

Dentsu Asia Pacific has appointed Mark Gabriel Chaves (Mako) to the role of Head of Media, dentsu Philippines, effective immediately. Chaves will be responsible for driving synergies for dentsu Philippines’ media brands and working closely with the heads of iProspect, dentsu X and Carat brands to ensure a unified representation of dentsu’s media capabilities in the industry.

Chaves returns to dentsu after 14 years, where he first worked at Carat Philippines in 2008, and three subsequent stints at dentsu Malaysia (formerly known as Aegis Media Malaysia) between 2010 to 2016 as Communications Planning Director, Chief Insight Officer and most notably, General Manager for Innovations. Under his leadership, the Carat team won four consecutive “Media Agency of the Year” awards from Campaign Magazine 2014, MARKIes Malaysia 2015, Malaysia MMA 2015, and Campaign Magazine 2015 – a feat unmatched to date.

Chaves brings with him over two decades of experience across relevant fields of expertise in media research, strategic planning, analytics, and creative development. Most recently, he was Client Partner – as Head of Media, Creative and Analytics, at Kantar Malaysia. In his role, he was responsible for the set-up, go-to-market strategies and revenue growth of media and digital, social analytics and business analytics, as well as oversight of creative capabilities. Prior to that, Chaves was General Manager at Zenith Media Philippines, during which the agency won ‘Agency of the Year Gold’ from Campaign Asia.

In addition to being an opinion piece contributor on topics around marketing, media and advertising for titles such as M&M Global publication, Chaves is also a regular speaker and Jury member at industry events and conferences including Malaysian Media Conference and Festival of Media Awards APAC. Most recently he was a speaker and panel moderator at The Star Media Group’s 2020 Digital & Data Conference.

JC Catibog, CEO of dentsu Philippines, said: “Mako is a big picture thinker and highly-motivated contemporary marketer who fundamentally believe that building brands is multi-faceted and hard work, and trusts the unique role of media. All of us in the Philippines are excited to welcome Mako back to the dentsu family and look forward to working closely together in scaling our media business to new heights.”

Chaves said: “Carat is familiar to me as well as the culture of dentsu. I will use this familiarity to navigate through the glue that brings the people together — and lead the team from within. There’s more to building brands – chief of which is mutual growth as partners around a central transformational idea. Our CEO JC has brilliantly put together a team of experts to realize his vision for dentsu Philippines and I’m humbled to be seen as someone who can complement an already-strong team of innovators and brand-builders.”