ASIA PACIFIC 2009
COMPETING ON A WORLD STAGE
BEIJING / 5 - 7 APRIL
John Smurthwaite
Chairman TNS Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East & Africa
John Smurthwaite joined Frank Small & Associates in Melbourne in 1971 having moved as a client from Fibremakers (ICI). After a few years as Managing Director of the Frank Small & Associates office in Melbourne, John moved to Asia to head up the fledgling FSA Asia operations in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. John began engineering the rapid expansion of FSA in the region firstly with an acquisition in Indonesia in 1980.
After moving to Hong Kong in 1981 and setting up the regional base there, John developed new companies from scratch in Korea, Taiwan and The Philippines in the mid 80s. China became of interest as well as Omnibus studies were conducted by 1984 from Hong Kong. He then set up the FSA business in Japan and India through JVs and acquisitions and Vietnam from scratch in the 90s
FSA was subsequently acquired by the French Company Sofres in 1995 and then Taylor Nelson in 1997. John continued on in Taylor Nelson Sofres as Chairman of Asia Pacific – the position he still holds today.
John has seen the original FSA Company grow from a few million dollars turnover in the early 80s to many hundreds of millions today employing some 4,000 staff in the region and prides himself for helping maintain the companies stability through the frequent mergers and acquisitions.