Cheuk Chiang has been appointed as the new CEO for Australia and New Zealand at Bastion, an integrated marketing and communications agency.

Chiang's career has been deeply rooted in innovation and leadership across creative, media, data and technology sectors. He most recently served as CEO-APAC for Dentsu Creative, a role that was made redundant in December, around the same time as a suite of local roles were culled to make way for dentsu ANZ's latest restructure. 

In the new role, Chiang will be responsible for driving business expansion and will have operational and P&L responsibility across Bastion’s ANZ business.

Chiang has also spent time as CEO – Greater North APAC for Dentsu, Chairman at AI start-up Mutiny, CEO – APAC at Omnicom Media Group and CEO – APAC for PHD and MD at Cummins&Partners. His career achievements include leading OMD and PHD to over 130 local and regional agency of the year awards across the Asia Pacific region, and expanding PHD from three offices to 21.

Chiang has also served as a judge at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and held chairmanship and presidency of esteemed industry awards such as the APAC Effie Awards and Spikes Asia Media jury. In 2015, Campaign Asia honoured Chiang as the Asia Pacific Agency Head of the Year.

Bastion, founded by brothers Fergus and Jack Watts, claims to be the largest independent agency in the region with over 350 staff across three countries and eight cities. The company plans further growth in areas such as media, AI, digital consulting and customer experience, ecommerce as well as expansion into the Asia Pacific region.

The appointment of Chiang follows Bastion’s acquisition of AnalogFolk, one of Australia’s premier digital creative agencies.

Jack Watts, Bastion Group CEO, was thrilled to bring in someone of Cheuk’s calibre to lead the 15-year-old business across ANZ.

"It’s a testament to the quality of our people, the trust our clients’ place in our abilities and the fearless approach we have taken to building this agency over the years We’ve got 300+ people across 7 offices in ANZ and it’s critical now that we have someone leading the business working day in day out to solve our clients biggest problems."

Watts also highlighted the significance of Chiang's appointment for the company's growth, "Cheuk’s appointment represents a major investment in our next phase of growth. We’re the biggest independent, but we want to be the best Agency in the region, period. We’ve continually reinvested in our business, our people and our clients over the years and this is the next step on that journey. Some people ask me ‘when are you guys going to slow down’, but personally, I don’t think we’re going fast enough."

Chiang also shared his enthusiasm about joining Bastion. "After spending time with Bastion’s key leaders, talent, and clients, I was super impressed with the strength and depth of Bastion’s capabilities.

"In a world where clients are struggling to survive and thrive against challenging market forces, they need help to not only better compete but also gain competitive advantage. Few agency groups can help them do this with the strength of integrated capabilities that Bastion has."

"Leveraging Bastion’s well stitched together offering and “one stop shop” to help put clients in a position of strength as well as the ability to deliver industry leading innovation got me very excited."

Bastion's major ANZ clients include Air New Zealand, Microsoft, Xbox, Kellogg’s, Spark, Unilever, L’Oreal, Crown Resorts and AIA.