UM Africa appoints new Managing Director to drive growth

Johannesburg-based marketing and advertising consultancy UM Africa has appointed Kevin Ndinguri as its new Managing Director. Ndinguri has been Client Managing Partner at UM Africa, and plans to use “better science and better art” to achieve results in his new role at the top.

Ndinguri is a media expert by academic background, and has a wide range of professional expertise in the media and marketing sphere. He has worked as a digital and media strategist at a variety of firms in South Africa, including Starcom MediaVest Group South Africa, NATIVE and The MediaShop.

After nearly three years at The MediaShop as Digital Strategist, he was promoted to Business Unit Manager, and has since occupied executive positions. He has been Strategy & Client Service Director at iClick Marketing and Managing Partner at IPG Mediabrands. He has been at UM Africa for one year now.

UM Africa is a digital marketing consultancy competing in a market where an increasing number of businesses are looking to bolster their marketing capabilities. Marketing technology, or MarTech, has become a core priority for many, driving them towards advisory firms for support with development in that area.

UM Africa is competing with a number of other firms that are looking to capitalise on this spike in demand. Google and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recently launched their Digital Maturity Framework in the South African market to allow firms to gauge their digital prowess. This has driven demand up even further.

Ndinguri intends to keep pace with marketing trends and use cutting edge strategies to keep UM Africa competitive. For him, this is a combination of what he calls “better art and better science.”

“We deliver better science through the power of business analytics and data intelligence to identify the audiences we should be talking to on behalf of our clients to achieve their business objectives. We then look at better art by identifying the moments that matter to create relevance for our clients' brands, and the interplay between better science and better art is then delivered through our proprietary tools to drive better outcomes for our clients' business,” he said.

On his appointment, he added, “I’m grateful to Brad [Brad Smale, MD of IPG Mediabrands] and the IPG Mediabrands leadership team for their continued support, and look forward to growing and building one of the best media agencies in South Africa, while attracting the best authentic talent that lives and delivers against our proposition of using better science and better art to drive better outcomes for our clients.”