About The Pontiff

Fredrik started his career as a 12 year-old, selling strawberries in rural Sweden during school holidays. Since leaving the strawberry fields, he has studied and worked across three continents, picked up three new languages, spent a year in jail (as a guard), and consumed shocking amounts of coffee. A University scholarship brought Fredrik to China in 1997-1998 to study Mandarin and Chinese culture at Zhongshan University. After classes, he moonlighted by appearing as an American rocket scientist on a Chinese TV soap opera. The fear that this footage will one day fall into the hands of his friends and colleagues still haunts him.

Professionally, he first came to Asia to help set up Swedish telecom company Antenna in Hong Kong in 1999. Fredrik went back to his native Sweden for freelance work in 2001 before returning to Asia in 2002 to co-found brand planning shop, MSC in Singapore. In early 2005, Fredrik joined Y&R Singapore in the role of Planning Director on the SingTel business. In the same year he moved on to take up the role of Regional Creative Planner at Y&R Brands Asia. Here, he did strategic planning across Asian markets for Tiger Beer, Discovery Channel, Chevron Lubricants, Citibank, Sony, Campbell’s Soup, Bacardi and Cerebos, as well as supported Y&R offices in the region on new business and consultancy projects.

In November of 2007, Fredrik joined TBWA Singapore as Planning Director to work on Singapore Airlines and Pernod Ricards’ Royal Salute Whiskey and Martell Cognac. A highlight working at TBWA was leading and winning the regional pitch for Corona Beer across Asian markets (including China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan).

Fredrik joined Bartle Bogle Hegarty Asia Pacific in August of 2009 as Planning Director on the global Singapore Tourism account. He has also led strategy on Mentos and Chupa Chups for Perfetti van Melle, as well as launched the world’s first nationwide 4G network called ‘YES’ in Malaysia for the YTL Group.

In October of 2012, Fredrik joined Mullen in Boston to work on Google, jetBLue and iRobot.

An avid explorer of human nature, not least in the digital space, Fredrik prescribes to a planning philosophy that concerns itself equally with how the world works (analysis) and how the world could work (creativity). He has extensive experience with the world’s best, non-proprietary planning tool – the good old chat – and he believes what brands of today need aren’t ‘digital ideas’, as much as ideas for a digital world.

Email: adplanner73@hotmail.com

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