Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced the appointment of Don Blake as senior vice president of Operations. Mr. Blake will lead a team focused on making operational improvements that strengthen Hitachi GST’s competitive position in the global hard disk drive market. He comes to Hitachi after spending 13 years at Western Digital Corporation, where he most recently served as vice president and general manager of WD Media.

“Don brings a proven record of accomplishment in high-volume manufacturing, supply chain management and global business operations,” said Steve Milligan, president, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “His leadership and industry knowledge will be critically important as we continue to make process and efficiency improvements that will have a positive impact on customer response time, product quality and overall satisfaction.”

Mr. Blake has more than 25 years of manufacturing and operations expertise in the hard disk drive industry. His tenure at WD included executive-level manufacturing, program management and quality roles. He spent seven years in Asia managing WD’s HDD operations and played a leading role in the acquisition and successful integration of Komag. He began his career at Digital Equipment Corporation and held operations management positions of increasing responsibility at Connor Peripherals, Maxtor and Toshiba.

Mr. Blake will maintain offices in Asia and at the company’s headquarters in San Jose, Calif.

The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA), an organization dedicated to best practices in professional publishing, has named Ms. Diana David as its new Deputy Chairman.

Ms. David is Regional Circulation and Business Development Director at
Financial Times Ltd., a position she has held since 2006. Previously she
chaired the SOPA Professional Training and Events Sub-committee and
spearheaded region-wide industry programs.

The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA), anorganization dedicated to best practices in professional publishing, has e-elected Mr. Terence Tung as its Chairman.

Mr. Tung is Chief Executive Officer of One Media Group which publishes Ming Pao Weekly, Hi-Tech Weekly and Top Gear Hong Kong Edition in Hong Kong. It also operates MING, Popular Science China Edition and Top Gear China Edition on the mainland, as well as Ming Pao Weekly in Taiwan. He joined as the Sales Director of Ming Pao Magazines Group in September 1998.

" I'm delighted and honored to have been elected Chairman of SOPA for anotheryear," said Mr. Tung. "The past year has been one of the most challenging ones as publishers sought to chart a course through the financial crisis and also deal with new technological developments impacting on the business."

"2010 should bring better times with the upswing in the economic cycle. Collectively we are quite upbeat about prospects. Membership numbers for SOPA increased by 15 percent last year despite the downturn," he said.

SOPA continues to expand its outreach programs in Asia including the hosting of its first "SOPA Media Summit" in Beijing last month. The landmark event under the theme "The Future of Publishing - New Platforms, New Technologies, New Models" brought together more than 150 senior executives from print,digital and mobile media groups, agencies, research and industry bodies from across China and the region.

Separately, the Society has just begun soliciting entries for the "SOPA 2010 Awards for Editorial Excellence". The competition, which seeks to highlight the best of Asian journalism, will this year include a new award category for "Multimedia News Presentation" to cater for new innovations in journalism with a more specific intent to honor techniques that are increasingly integral to the profession. Last year's awards received 547entries from 97 publications.

The Society of Publishers in Asia has also conducted a series of "SOPA Media Insiders" events throughout the year in Hong Kong and Singapore including topics on new media, groundbreaking research and advertising strategies.

Mr. Tung welcomed the appointment of new Board representatives including Mr. Barrie Goodridge, CEO Asia for Edipresse Asia Limited, Mr. David E. Smith,Regional Director, Advertising & Sponsorship at The Economist Group (A/P) Ltd. and Mr. Shawn Hiltz, Director of Marketing, Asia at The Wall Street Journal Asia.

SOPA Board Officers re-appointed include Mr. Randy Weddle (Managing Director Asia/Pacific for International Herald Tribune (HK) Ltd.) as the Honorary Treasurer and Ms. Do Do Yeung (Managing Director and Publisher for Hachette Filipacchi Hong Kong Limited) as the Honorary Secretary.

For Sub-committees, Ms. Christina Lee (Asia Managing Director for
BusinessWeek) has been appointed Chairman of the China Projects Group Sub-committee. Mr. David E. Smith will head the SOPA Publishers' Ball Sub-committee and Ms. Alice Chai (Research Director for The Wall Street Journal Asia) will be in charge of the Research Sub-committee.

Marriott International (NYSE:MAR) has named John Toomey regional director of global sales for Greater China, based in Hong Kong, effective immediately. Most recently, he was area marketing and sales director for Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asia.

In his new role, Mr. Toomey has overall responsibility for providing strategic sales leadership for Marriott’s global sales efforts throughout Greater China. Among his priorities are to develop and implement business segment sales strategies that align with the company’s overall sales goals and objectives at the corporate and property levels and to ensure optimal use of sales resources and pull-through of segment strategies for new and existing accounts. Currently, Marriott maintains sales offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai.

Mr. Toomey began his Marriott career in 1996 as a national account executive with the company’s Los Angeles national sales office. Three years later, he was promoted to director of marketing for the Renaissance Mumbai Hotel & Convention Center in Mumbai, India. In 2002, he was advanced to country director of sales and marketing for Marriott’s hotels for India. He was promoted to his most recent position in 2006.

He is a graduate of Indiana University with a B.A. degree in English and currently resides in Hong Kong.

Websense, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBSN) today announced the appointment of Alison Higgins-Miller as Vice President for Asia Pacific Sales. Higgins-Miller joins Websense bringing more than 10 years management experience within the IT sector, most recently in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector. She will be responsible for building and aligning the sales and channel strategy for the Asia Pacific region to support business growth.

"Websense has a very unique, compelling value proposition that provides unprecedented visibility into the internal and external movement of information in the Web 2.0 world," said Alison Higgins-Miller Vice President for Asia Pacific Sales. "The threat landscape is changing rapidly and I am delighted to be joining the company at this exciting time in the industry.”

Previous roles held by Higgins-Miller include Managing Director at Acelarus, a full-service partnership for complementary SaaS vendors. The company incubates regional business for software companies wishing to expand their global revenues. Prior to Acelarus, she held the position of Vice President of Asia Pacific for RightNow Technologies, a successful pioneer in SaaS business applications. In this role, she grew the business from a virtual start-up, to a team of 34 in the region.

Other roles include President of Asia-Pacific operations for Enterasys network management subsidiary Aprisma, where she built a multi-national sales and support team from its inception, a group that consistently exceeded projected revenue targets. Higgins-Miller also built a successful multi-national sales and support team from inception to achieve revenue growth and Oracle Corporation where she held the role of regional manager. She developed partnerships and managed a number of management consultancies globally for Oracle and was responsible for building Global strategies for world wide practices, establishing the company as a preferred partner with each consultancy. Before Oracle, Alison held positions at several leading IT companies in Australia.

Initially based out of Websense in Sydney, Higgins-Miller will report directly into Didier Guibal, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales.