SHANGHAI—Weber Shandwick has been appointed agency of record for the California Walnut Commission in China. Following a competitive pitch, Weber Shandwick was selected to provide full-spectrum public relations services, as the grower-funded government agency looks to expand exports in one of the world's largest food markets. The firm's upcoming work on behalf of CWC will include the development of a holistic public relations strategy to engage and educate consumers about the benefits of California walnuts.

MUMBAI—MSLGroup India has launched a new global digital and social practice in the country, Social Hive and introduced a new proprietary and social tool: the Social Hive Index, which can benchmark a company's social engagement and compare it to its peers. The Social Hive team in India is led by senior vice president Parveez Modak and vice president Narendra Nag. The team comprises of more than 40 consultants in Mumbai and Delhi who manage 5 million people across online communities.

BEIJING—APCO Worldwide has been selected provide strategic media relations support to Fortune in conjunction with the 2013 Global Forum taking place June 6-8 in Chengdu. APCO will provide media relations support to the Fortune Global Forum to build awareness before the event and will also manage the press office on-site during the event. APCO’s support also includes strategic counsel to Fortune from APCO's senior counselors.

SINGAPORE—Lewis PR has won the Spotify business and expanded its service offering with the roll out of its digital marketing arm Lewis Pulse into Singapore. Lewis will handle a two-year campaign for streaming music service Spotify across Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. The news follows the launch of new offices in Bangalore and Kuala Lumpur earlier this year.

SINGAPORE—OANDA Asia Pacific, a provider of innovative foreign exchange trading services, has appointed The Hoffman Agency Singapore as its public relations agency of record in Asia Pacific. The Hoffman Agency will help develop and execute media strategies to raise OANDA's brand awareness across various media channels.

SYDNEY—Yianni Konstantopoulos, former vice president, strategy and business development, at Washington, DC, agency Blue State Digital, will join Ogilvy Public Relations Australia in the newly-created role of group managing director for social@Ogilvy.


TOKYO—Edelman has hired Atsuo Ishida as the co-head of its digital practice in Japan. Ishida was previously at Dentsu and Dentsu PR, where he planned and launched marketing PR campaigns and has experience specializing in content creation and digital media outreach.

SHANGHAI—Ogilvy Health has named Cheuk Lee to the newly created position of regional director medical education, Asia Pacific. Cheuk comes from the IPG network in the Asia Pacific region, where he was most recently general manager of McCann Complete Medical China.