[By NBC-1TV H. J Yook]HootSuite, the world‘s most popular social relationship management platform, which recently received one of the years’ largest rounds of global venture capital funding of US $165 million in August, named Ken Mandel as Managing Director for Asia Pacific (APAC). Mandel, an experienced sales and digital advertising leader in APAC, brings a wide range of enterprise innovation and executive leadership experience to HootSuite. Mandel is now responsible for HootSuite's regional growth strategy and rapid expansion with Enterprise customers.

Prior to joining HootSuite, Mandel was Managing Director, Salesforce Marketing Cloud for APAC, and before that he was Buddy Media‘s first hire in the region. Mandel led Buddy Media’s growth in the region until it was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2012.

Before his role at Salesforce.com/Buddy Media, Mandel was Yahoo!‘s Regional Vice President of APAC. At Yahoo!, Mandel opened four new markets in under two years and monetized Yahoo!’s entire product line, including Display, Search, Ad Network, Mobile, and the RightMedia Exchange.

Mandel‘s previous experience includes CEO of APAC for Neo@Ogilvy, where he grew the digital marketplace foresights team in the region from a single person to over 200 employees in just 16 months; and at XM, where he developed one office with 18 staff into one of the region’s most awarded digital agencies with four offices and more than 110 employees