XM Asia appoints Ernest Kim as Planning Director

XM Asia has appointed marketing, design and digital heavyweight Ernest Kim as Director of Planning, adding more bench strength to XM’s fast-growing regional leadership team.

Kim (left) joins XM Asia from the Portland, Oregon office of Wieden + Kennedy where, as Senior Digital Strategist, he drove digital, social and mobile marketing strategy for major clients including Coca-Cola and Diet Coke North America.

Prior to that role, Kim was Senior Global Product Line Manager for running footwear at Nike, in Beaverton, Oregon, where he led the creation of the award-winning Nike LunarGlide+ franchise, which quickly became the best-selling performance running shoe in Nike’s history. Kim was also lead inventor of the patent-pending Dynamic Support midsole technology that’s at the heart of the LunarGlide+, among several other best-selling models in Nike’s running portfolio.

Kim also founded Kicksology.net, which was, in its day, the world’s leading resource for performance-based reviews of basketball footwear, and co-founded 37signals, a boutique interactive design firm with a notable roster of clients, including U S WEST Dex, the FastWeb division of Monsters.com and Panera Bread.

He also served as Creative Director of the Chicago office of Organic, an interactive marketing agency, and has held senior design positions at the interactive divisions of Lifetime Television, Disney and McCann Erickson.

“I’m hugely excited to join the XM family. When I first met Paul and the team, I was struck by how closely their energy and ambition mirrored the dynamism of the region as a whole–it’s that spirit that drew me to XM and Singapore,” said Kim. “I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and get to work building experiences that catalyze deep, enduring relationships between our clients and their customers.”

XM Asia, which is a JWT company, recently completed the acquisition of XM Gravity, formerly Magnivate, which is Indonesia’s leading digital agency. XM also has operations in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

“It has been a fantastic few months, having completed our acquisition in Indonesia, and now I am extremely thrilled to have such a cross-disciplinary, multi-talented innovator join our team.  XM is in growth mode, and Ernest will play a key role in growing our business and expanding our offerings across Southeast Asia and beyond,” said Paul Soon, CEO of XM Asia.