Duhamel Leads Asian Expansion for Optimisa's KAE

London-based marketing consultancy kae: marketing intelligence has expanded into Asia and appointed former Synovate Asia-Pac MD Damien Duhamel to head its two new offices in Shanghai and Singapore.

KAE Asia launches with a team of a dozen experienced consultants split between the two locations. Simon Dannatt, CEO of parent company Optimisa observed: 'Asia is an attractive market for us and we are pleased to launch there with such a strong and experienced team. We have worked with Damien in the past and given his previous achievements, we are delighted that he has accepted the challenge to develop KAE Asia.'

For the last year, Duhamel has been MD Asia-Pac of pharma analysis firm Clearstate, prior to which he worked at Synovate for six years where he was credited with quadrupling revenues and profits as well as expanding the firm's presence from five offices to 15 across Asia Pacific and the United States. Before this, he founded and managed Artemis Asia, a Vietnam-based boutique market intelligence consultancy which he sold in late 1999. Duhamel has an MBA in Strategy and Finance from the University of Chicago GSB and a BA in Business in International Trade from Victoria University.

The division will offer the full range of KAE services - marketing strategy development, new proposition development, market entry strategy, market evaluation and forecasting, and competitive strategy - across all sectors.

In August Optimisa announced it had almost doubled its interim profit, posting a pre-tax profit of £780,000 for the six months ended 30 June (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7214.htm ). Dannatt commented that a record 2007 has provided the platform needed for this international expansion and diversification.

Web sites are www.kae.com and www.optimisaplc.com.