GroupM Asia Pacific on Tuesday announced the promotion of Prasanth Kumar, COO of GroupM South Asia, to CEO.

He succeeds Sam Singh, who is leaving the company in June-end to take on a senior role at ByteDance in India. ByteDance is a Chinese technology company whose products include popular short-video app TikTok.

Kumar will take up the CEO role with immediate effect, said a statement from GroupM, a marketing services company. “I am humbled at the opportunity to take on the CEO role for GroupM in one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing markets in the world,” the statement quoted him as saying.

“It has been an absolute privilege working with GroupM this last one year. The friends that I have made are friends for life,” said Singh.