Shukri Rifaie

Shukri has over 30 years’ experience in the Malaysian branding and advertising industry. A Mass Communication graduate; major in Advertising from ITM (UiTM). Started his career with J Walter Thompson and later moved to McCann-Erickson advertising where he built his career in over a period of 12 years there. He joined Bates at the end of 2001 as Director of Client service and was promoted to CEO just a year later.

His main contribution at Bates was to rebuild the agency post SARs, Iraq War crisis and the WPP UK takeover in 2003. As a result of the takeover, Bates had to re-align and surrender half of its international portfolio to its sister agencies. Within three years of his leadership there, Bates has won a list of new businesses that include, Levi Strauss Malaysia, Dockers Khakis, F&N Sarsi, Parkson Corporation, Honda Malaysia, Sepang F1 Circuit, Ministry of Health’s “Tak Nak”, HIV & Aedes campaign, BenQ Marketing Services and Johor Trading (Secret Garden).

Over the course of his career, he has also worked on and been a part of the success of Malaysia’s most respected brands and corporations, including Malaysia Airlines, Tourism Malaysia, Coca-Cola, Nokia, 100PLUS, Shell, Nestle, Unilever, Mamee, Gillette, Opel and Hotlink from Maxis.

In 2007, he joined Publicis Groupe Malaysia as a CEO and was responsible for its wholly owned subsidiaries like Adsell Advertising, Publicis Dialog (PR/Events/CRM & activation agency) & Publicis CGS (a specialized packaging design agency). Publicis key clients are Citibank, Hewlett Packard, L’Oreal – Garnier, Nestle, Cadbury, Sara Lee (Brylcreem), P&G (Oral B), MSIG, Western Union, Sime Darby Property and Ayamas.

Shukri currently runs his own consultancy partnership on strategic brand marketing with an aim to help local businesses compete with international brands from a position of strength.