MLA was founded in 1983 by James Thornton from a headquarters in Hong Kong. He had been active in periodical publishing in the UK, continental Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific since 1962 (managing and owning his own magazine publishing business since 1969).

He came to the conclusion in 1983 that publishing was essentially "a labour of love" and decided to launch MLA as a list and DM production service provider to DM users in the Asia-Pacific market and to service his own separate international DM projects company. His DM activities and focus have been global and multinational since the early 80's. In 2007 he received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" for International Direct Marketing from the U.S. Direct Marketing Association.

MLA currently has offices in Hong Kong and Manila and a 50/50 joint venture with Mailing Lists (India) in Mumbai.

Marilou Capistrano, 17 years with MLA, is responsible for local, regional and international list brokerage and list management out of the Hong Kong office. You may contact her at Marilou @ MLAresponse.com. Chris Hemmings (Chris @ MLAresponse.com), an Englishman based in Asia for 25 years, with a magazine publishing background, joined MLA in 2010 as DM Project Director. He is managing the MLA Manila office.

Both offices offer competitive print, production and postal distribution services out of China and Hong Kong (and in the near future out of India and Singapore) for major clients.