Movers & Shakers: McCann, Rakuten, Guardian

By AdNews | 6 April 2018
 

It's hard to keep up with all the latest moves across media, marketing and advertising, so we've made a list. Check out the biggest moves in adland this week.

DDB CEO Nicole Taylor exits for McCann

DDB CEO Nicole Taylor and chief strategy officer Fran Clayton have defected from the agency to take up post at McCann. The move follows the departure of long-standing national CEO Ben Lilley who left McCann in February this year. Taylor is now national CEO of Interpublic Group-owned McCann and Clayton is national chief strategy officer, which is a role that also used to fall under Lilley. Read more.

Lotame names new data solutions VP for APAC

Lotame has promoted Evgeny Popov to the role of VP, data solutions for the APAC region. Popov steps into the role following a successful two-year stint as senior director of data solutions, APAC - where he played a key role in the company’s growth in the region, doubling revenue. Beyond his work with Lotame, Popov served as senior director and lead organiser in Australia and Singapore for AdTech Meetup. He has also held the role of co-chairman of marketing and ad technology for IAB Singapore and Ad Tech Advisory Council in Sydney.

Guardian Australia reveals new managing director

Seven West Media head of digital Dan Stinton has been named Guardian managing director as CEO Ian McClelland heads back to the UK. Stinton has been the head of digital at Seven West Media's Western Australian business for nearly three years, leading The West Australian, Perth Now and 7 Perth. He began his career as a journalist, before co-founding a digital startup in the beverage industry and holding senior roles at Yahoo7. Read more.

Allure Media chief revenue officer Sarah Wyse exits

Allure Media’s chief revenue officer Sarah Wyse will exit the company as she turns her focus to her own business, Wyse Women. Wyse joined Allure Media last year from Videology, where she was the managing director for four years. During her short tenure, Wyse led the restructure of the commercial team and hired Aaron Macarthur, who will now run the commercial team as national sales and operations director. Read more.

Ex-HuffPost CEO JJ Eastwood joins Rakuten Marketing

Former HuffPost Australia CEO JJ Eastwood has joined Rakuten Marketing as managing director APAC. Eastwood replaces former managing director Anthony Capano as he moves to London, where he now leads the company’s European operations. Eastwood's career has spanned across Fairfax, News Corp, Rocketfuel, eBay and most recently, HuffPost. He joined HuffPost in 2016 with his role impacted as the publisher split from Fairfax and scaled down its Australian operations with a slate of redundancies. Read more.

WhiteGrey's Andrew Davenport joins digital consultancy

Former WhiteGrey managing director Andrew Davenport will lead the Australian operations of global digital marketing and technology agency Valtech. Joining as managing director, Davenport will drive the Valtech global offer in the Australian market with the aim of replicating the company’s global success and business growth, which has seen it expand across five continents in 25 years. Davenport's departure from WhiteGrey was announced in March amongst a slate of other resignations at the agency.

Russ Mitchinson joins Essence Australia

GroupM has appointed Russ Mitchinson to the role of head of strategy ANZ for Essence Australia. Mitchinson moves across from OMD, where he held a similar role, to head up strategy for the data and measurement-driven agency. Prior to his time at OMD, Mitchinson was at Leo Burnett and DDB. The appointment follows James Luty who joined the team last month in the role of client partner for Google.

Publicis forms new strategy-driven team

Publicis has "re-engineered" its Brisbane agency, appointing David Smerdon to the role of strategy director. Smerdon has over 15 years industry experience in both media and creative agencies and before joining Publicis he was strategy director at Clemenger Brisbane. The agency has grown in the past 12 months by over 25%, making it the fastest growing creative agency in Queensland, now with 65 staff. Other strategy-focused hires include Helene Thorsen, who joins from Vizeum and Isobar in Denmark as strategist and Scott Isaac, who also joins as a strategist.

Leadership shakeup at Webling

Co-founder of WPP digital agency Webling, which sits within J Walter Thompson, Deniz Nalbantoglu has departed the agency after 14 years. Nalbantoglu, who was managing director, will be replaced by Claire Van Heyningen, who will now take on leadership of the agency. Most recently, Van Heyningen was people and culture consultant at content agency We are Social and prior to that, group head of digital at M&C Saatchi. Nalbantoglu will now pursue other interests outside of agency life, adding a new job description to his LinkedIn profile: “proud dad, terrible golfer, budding pitmaster, prospective entrepreneur at Life in General”. WPP bought Webling in 2015.

News and political editor Osman Faruqi quits Junkee Media

News and political editor Osman Faruqi has resigned from Junkee Media after nearly two years with the youth-focused publisher. He announced his departure over the weekend on Twitter, but is yet to announce his next move. Prior to Junkee, Faruqi had written for Guardian Australia, GQ and Vice and co-hosted FBi Radio’s news and current affairs program Backchat. Last year, Faruqi, a former Greens staffer and candidate, sued Mark Latham for defamation over 'anti-white racism' comments.

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