Moonfolks is setting its sight on regional expansion, with Vietnam emerging as the agency’s next growth market, just after its newly launched presence in Brunei.
Speaking on Marketing Connected’s Agency Agenda podcast, the CEO of Moonfolks, and also president director of Havas Moonfolks, revealed that the Vietnam move has long been in the works. “We could have done this expansion way back, since before COVID, but the pandemic happened and our plans were derailed,” he said. Now, with a strong 2025 behind the agency, he said, “The timing is perfect, and we all feel confident to go out and start winning the world over.”
The move also marks a return to familiar ground for Daryani, who previously spent time working in Vietnam. He credits the market for shaping his entrepreneurial mindset, describing it as a place defined by “the hustle, the excitement, and the impatience to get things done,” alongside a strong appetite for digital innovation.
In contrast, Brunei presents a different opportunity. While smaller in population, Daryani pointed to its strong economic fundamentals and untapped potential. “They have big ambitions as clients and brands there, but they also have gaps in terms of the industry being able to support them,” he said, adding that a single visit was enough to spark the expansion decision.
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Both markets will be supported by a hub-and-spoke model, with Indonesia remaining the agency’s anchor. “We’ll have Indonesia as the hub team, but we will have specialists coming onboard with market understanding on the ground,” he explained.
Expansion, however, is just one part of Daryani’s broader agenda for Moonfolks. He is also focused on strengthening capabilities in tech and data, while ensuring the agency’s culture scales alongside its footprint. “We have a very strong culture at Moonfolks, and we need to translate that into our new markets” he said, noting that providing support and backing to its new Vietnam and Brunei units will be a key priority.
That culture is rooted in an entrepreneurial spirit that Daryani actively fosters within the agency. “We often tell our folks: ‘We wish this is your last job’, because when they get out of here, they should be doing something on their own, whether its a creative business or an agency business,” he said. “So we’re actually grooming a whole lot of entrepreneurs.”
For Daryani, that mindset is personal. Having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs, he credits early exposure to business, from working in his father’s shop to learning how to read customers, as foundational to his leadership today. “A lot of the confidence my brother and I have, and our understanding of people, we learned in our very early years, and it became intuition,” he said.
With expansion underway and capabilities evolving, Daryani is bright-eyed for 2026 ahead, as he said:
The only reward for doing good work is more work.
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