Dentsu expands Dan Pantumsinchai’s APAC role to gaming and entertainment

MUMBAI: The game is getting bigger, and so is the playbook. Dentsu has expanded Dan Pantumsinchai’s role to Managing Director of Gaming and Entertainment, APAC, broadening his remit beyond gaming to include anime, manga, music and wider entertainment intellectual property (IP) as the agency sharpens its focus on the region’s fast-converging media landscape.

Pantumsinchai announced the move on LinkedIn, saying the expanded role reflects how gaming is increasingly intersecting with other entertainment sectors, particularly across the Asia-Pacific region, where fan communities and content ecosystems are becoming more interconnected.

In his new position, Pantumsinchai will work with Dentsu’s teams and clients across APAC to integrate gaming and entertainment capabilities, helping brands engage audiences through partnerships, content initiatives and new forms of fan engagement that connect culture with commerce.

The appointment builds on nearly two years as Managing Director of Gaming, APAC, a role he assumed in September 2024. During that tenure, he oversaw Dentsu’s gaming business across Southeast Asia, China, India, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia-New Zealand, developing the company’s first holistic APAC gaming strategy and go-to-market framework.

He also co-authored the Dentsu 2025 Gaming Trends Report, led cross-market collaboration with global gaming teams in the US, Europe and Japan, and served as the agency’s spokesperson on gaming, contributing to industry publications including Campaign Asia and Little Black Book.

Pantumsinchai brings nearly two decades of experience spanning gaming, technology and entertainment. Before joining Dentsu, he served as Strategic Partnerships Development Manager for Google Play, managing a portfolio generating more than $500 million in annual revenue and over one billion active installs across Southeast Asia and Australia-New Zealand.

Earlier, he headed strategic partnerships for Riot Games in Southeast Asia, where he secured more than $10 million in co-marketing agreements for franchises including League of Legends, Valorant and Wild Rift.

His career also includes nearly four years at Twitch, where he led international esports initiatives and helped deliver more than 145 Twitch Rivals events across 35 games, attracting 20 million viewers, involving 2,600 creators and distributing $8 million in prize money.

Before that, Pantumsinchai spent five years at Capcom, where he managed the global Street Fighter franchise, led the launch campaign for Street Fighter V, which went on to achieve 7.4 million lifetime sales, and co-founded the Capcom Pro Tour, one of the publisher’s earliest esports initiatives.

His expanded mandate comes as gaming increasingly evolves into a broader entertainment ecosystem, where brands are looking beyond traditional advertising to engage audiences through creators, communities and cross-media intellectual property. By bringing gaming, entertainment and fan culture under a single leadership structure, Dentsu is signalling that the future of audience engagement in APAC may be shaped as much by shared passions as by platforms.