SAS country manager appointed regional head

MANILA, Philippines - SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, has appointed Philippine country manager Sonny Halili as regional director of the Pacific Region. In this new role, he will lead operations in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei and Guam. Halili will also lead expansion initiatives in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, French Polynesia, Samoa and Micronesia.

The Pacific and South East Asia Regions are the two new regional hubs SAS recently formed in the Asia Pacific. The clustering of these emerging markets under strong regional leaderships will give SAS the ability to further its alignment with its customer-driven objectives while enhancing the speed of delivery of localised solutions and services directly to customers across Asia Pacific.

“This structure aligns the organization with our goal to increase our effectiveness in the selected countries. This way, we maximize our top revenue while growing our customer-centric focus in the region to expand our ‘trusted advisor’ status with our customers,” said Mikael Hagström, SAS EVP for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific.

Earlier this year, Halili became the first Filipino to head SAS Emerging Markets in Asia, which included Vietnam and Indonesia.. “He has multiplied revenues in the Philippines seven times since he took over six years ago. We are very confident that his leadership skills as well as his proven track record will accelerate our expansion further in Southeast Asia,” said David Hughes, SAS VP for Asia Pacific.

SAS also appointed Maxie Ventura-Garin as the new country operations director for the Philippines. Garin joined SAS in 2003. Previously commercial sales and marketing director, Garin is now in charge of Philippine operations as well as all line functions. “I am confident that she will further strengthen the day-to-day leadership in SAS Philippines and continue to develop the local subsidiary as the hub that will provide highly competent and technical Filipino expertise across the Asia Pacific region,” said Halili.

SAS Philippines was named Top Performing Country of The Year four times by SAS Institute, most recently in 2008.