NETS' head of strategic marketing and comms Shabirin Ariffin exits

NETS' head of strategic marketing and communications Shabirin Ariffin (pictured) has left the company after four years.

At NETS, he was responsible for leading a team of 10 ranging expertise across strategic marketing, brand governance, digital and social engagement and creative design. His tasks spanned from driving revenue and market share KPIs through the company's key products and services, to managing relationships with stakeholders such as banks, merchants, industry partners, agencies (creative, media, digital and social) and the general audience.

During his time with the company, NETS was involved in the digitisation of e-payment solutions across coffee shops, hawker centres and industrial canteens. In collaboration called by Enterprise Singapore, Housing and Development Board (HDB), National Environment Agency (NEA) and JTC Corporation implemented payment schemes through unified touch-points. NETS was chosen for its capability in developing a commercially-viable, inter-operable and open access e-payment solution.

With over 15 years of experience, Ariffin told Marketing that in his time in the industry, the biggest change has been of the marketing function evolving from a "hunch and feel" strategy to a calculated data science-driven approach to prove the precision of "hunch and feel" before execution. He told Marketing that today, everything is about ROI and "it is a good thing as there will be no wastage of resources at the end of the day".

Ariffin also told Marketing said that one of his biggest learnings was to treat agency partners well. "We need to work together effectively to make everyone look good. It's never a one-time or a one-off thing. My career belief has always been to involve myself in different industries as much as possible so that my learning journey continues," he said. Having worked across multi-industries, he added that he has had the privilege to lead and learn from new teams:

Be it in brand positioning, product launches, niche segment engagements and recently, digital transformation. It has been rewarding.

Prior to joining NETS, Ariffin had a seven-year stint with Singtel. Starting off in 2008 as a manager under segment marketing and communications for the ethnic segment, he was the lead marketer to the new ethnic segment initiative. Ariffin was tasked to drive market share in telco and broadband services to the local Malay community. He scaled his way to taking on the position as manager, mobile brand marketing, Apple and Android devices two years after, and last helmed the role of a team lead, segment marketing and communications, prepaid mobile and mFinance.

Before his time with Singtel, Ariffin was the manager of channel promotions at Mediacorp between 2003 and 2008. According to his LinkedIn, he managed the full suite of brand, marketing, business development and PR for the channel as its introduction as a full service channel. During his time with Mediacorp, he was involved in developing new and creative audience engagement ideas to build affinity with the target audience.

In addition, Ariffin was the assistant manager of marketing communications at CapitaLand for over two years. His remit covered brand, promotions, community engagement, public relations, event sponsorships and editorial creation for the mall. Ariffin also operationally managed four key campaigns for the mall on an end-to-end execution level.