Mike Liew

Mike Liew joined Upstream Asia in August 2006 as Managing Director for Singapore and Southeast Asia, bringing with him nearly 20 years of experience in the communications business that has spanned Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Asia Pacific region. In addition to overseeing Upstream's existing operations in Singapore, he has a regional remit to expand and deepen the services available to Upstream's clients and lead Upstream’s development in Southeast Asia.

Mike was most recently an Executive Director with GolinHarris where his responsibilities included provision of strategic counsel and direction of a variety of clients across all industry sectors, such as Sony Ericsson, SYSTIMAX Solutions, JPMorgan Private Bank and OCBC Bank, and also day-to-day management of the agency with the managing director. In late 2004, Mike led the team that worked on the PR program for the highly successful IPO of AirAsia, the leading low cost carrier in Asia. The campaign for AirAsia was also awarded the Certificate of Excellence at the 2005 Asia Pacific Public Relations Awards held in Hong Kong.

Prior to joining GolinHarris, Mike was vice-president at Ogilvy PR, where his clients included JPMorgan Investment Bank, JPMorgan Private Bank, CFA Institute, Jones Day, Scottish Development International, Pfizer and Schlumberger. Prior to relocating to Ogilvy PR Singapore in 2002, Mike was seconded to Ogilvy's Jakarta office for almost a year where he looked after clients such as Bank Danamon, Sampoerna, Telkom, ING Insurance, Pizza Hut and Airbus.

He has also spent over three years as Director of Marketing Communications with Visa International Asia Pacific. Based at Visa's regional headquarters in Singapore, his responsibility encompassed all communications programs for Visa's Risk Management Group and Emerging Products Group, which is focused on the technology side of the card business, such as initiatives to accelerate the adoption of smart cards and e-commerce by Visa member banks in Asia Pacific.

A Malaysian, Mike has also chalked up a number of years experience at regional and international public relations consultancies in Kuala Lumpur. Some of the Malaysian and multinational clients he has worked on include AirAsia, Perwaja Steel, Hewlett Packard, Gateway Computers, Samsung, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Latitude Tree, Pohmay Holdings and Meritus Hotels Group.