TikTok nabs Spotify's Ong Sea Yen to build up channel revenue partnerships

TikTok has appointed Ong Sea Yen as the head of channel revenue partnerships of Southeast Asia. His appointment began in March this year. According to his LinkedIn, Ong brings with him 16 years of experience in mainstream advertising and digital sales working across both Malaysia and Singapore. 

Prior to his current position, Ong was the regional head of sales at Spotify for nearly seven years from 2016 to 2023, before which he was the head of business consulting at CtrlShift from 2015 to 2016. While at CtrlShift, Ong also spent three years leading the team selling Spotify advertising across Malaysia and Philippines as a reseller. His experience and passion saw the team grow these markets to be amongst the top performing countries for Spotify in terms of advertising sales.

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He moved to CtrlShift from Better Digital Solutions; a company formed through capital acquisition of five prominent businesses in the digital industry. He has also worked at Yellow Brick Road, Rapp Collins Worldwide and OgilvyOne in Malaysia. At the time of his appointment at Spotify, Ong was responsible for driving Spotify Asia's advertising revenue and strategy. He led custom partnerships and brand initiatives across the current markets Spotify is part of in Asia.

Ong's expertise across the digital spectrum covering display, mobile, search, social and programmatic advertising was seen as key with Spotify's advertising business having grown 100% year over year.

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