Movers and Shakers: Spotify, Facebook, Audible, BWM Dentsu

By AdNews | 18 August 2017
 

Farjami promoted to CEO

Just weeks after starting his chief revenue officer spot at social media news agency Storyful in New York, Sharb Farjami has now moved into the top CEO position. Farjami relocated from Sydney to the US earlier this month after more than six years working across the media industry in Australia. His most recent role was content commercialisation ­director at pay-TV operator Foxtel. At News Corp-owned Storyful, Farjami replaces Rahul Chopra, who had been in the CEO role since December 2014. Speaking to AdNews last month abut his CRO role, Farjami said he was dogged about the firm's “aggressive expansion” opportunities.

BWM Dentsu Melbourne leadership shake-up

Mark Watkin has stepped down as managing director of BWM Dentsu Melbourne after four years in the role to “pursue a new opportunity”. Belinda Murray will replace Watkin who joined the agency in 2013 from TBWA. Murray has been with BWM Dentsu since 2008. As part of the leadership shake-up, ECD Simon Bagnasco has also left the agency after just over a year in the role. Amy Hollier has being promoted to fill Bagnasco's position. The new management team will ready the Melbourne business for increased work from Toyota, as the brand transitions its marketing operations to Melbourne in 2018.

M&C Saatchi Melbourne hunts new MD

M&C Saatchi Melbourne is hunting a new managing director following the departure of David Dahan, AdNews can reveal. Dahan has returned to Ogilvy as worldwide MD of global brand management for its Singapore office. He was previously director of operations at Ogilvy on the Unilever account before joining M&C Saatchi in 2015. AdNews understands Dahan has not worked at M&C Saatchi for several months. Read more here.

Facebook bolsters creative team with former Clemenger and Unilever execs

Facebook has named Andy Simpson as lead of its Creative Shop following the departure of Rebecca Carrasco in October last year. Simpson joins from the Creative Shop team in the US where he has spent the past four years as a creative strategist. He has a strategic marketing background and held roles in brand management at Unilever and video game developer Ubisoft previously joining Facebook.  Simpson will lead the local team of five senior creatives, including recently hired creative strategists Karen O’Leary and Dan Walton and creative research lead Lara Andrews. Walton joins Facebook from Clemenger Sydney where he was creative group lead for just over two years. He has also held roles at DDB Sydney and Colenso Auckland. Read more here.

Clemenger BBDO hires Jonny Berger to lead CUB

Clemenger BBDO Melbourne has hired M&C Saatchi's Jonny Berger as general manager on it Carlton United Breweries account. Berger was group head at M&C where he worked on the Australian launch of Netflix, Woolworths, eBay and Optus' Premier League offering. Berger says: “The Clemenger work for the Brewery is the stuff of legend and it's an incredible partnership - I’m very much looking forward to forging the next chapter.”

The Guardian hires former Fairfax digital director

The Guardian has hired former Fairfax director of digital commercialisation Tereza Alexandratos to the role of commercial operations director. She will be responsible for overseeing the publisher’s data strategies, programmatic advertising and advertising operations. In her role, Alexandratos will also supervise Guardian Labs, the branded content studio, production and delivery team.She will report directly into Guardian Australia’s CEO Ian McClelland and work closely with Tony Bell, Guardian Australia’s national sales director. She begins in November.

Former Fox Sports marketer heads to Audible Japan

Chris Gross, former Fox Sports head of brand and social is taking on the marketing director role at Audible Japan. Gross left Fox Sports earlier this year amid a reshuffle that saw a number of marketing roles axed. Audible is the audio books division of Amazon. It's headed up locally by Matthew Gains, former MD of Edelman, and just launched its first major marketing push here. (see below). Gross also featured in the 2016 edition of The Annual and penned a column about how marketers shouldn't grumble about the challenges they face. Read: A Marketer's Lens: Don't grumble over challenges

Spotify brings in group sales director

Just two weeks after announcing former Pandora boss Jane Huxley as the new CEO of Spotify Australia and New Zealand, the music streaming firm has appointed a new group sales manager. Kate Perry is joining from Bauer where she led the NSW agency sales team. She will sit under national sales director Andrea Ingham and look after agency groups OMD and IPG.

Charlish streams ahead

Global advertising and marketing company Adstream has promoted Georgie Charlish to the role of managing director Australia and New Zealand. Prior to joining Adstream, Charlish worked with Bauer Media and Pacific Magazines in advertising sales roles. She left Pacific Magazines as NSW sales director to join Adstream where she has spent the last 10 years, most recently as commercial director, Australia and New Zealand. CEO of Adstream North America, Geoff Hoffmann, said with Charlish being part of the Adstream family for close to 10 years, there is not a more suited person than her to lead the business in ANZ.

Blue 449 promotes Zara Cobb

Blue 449 this week promoted its former head of planning Zara Cobb into the head of strategy and planning role as part of the roll out of the new Blue 449 Open Source approach. The promotion follows the departure of Ian Czencz, who left in June – after more than 10 years at the agency. Cobb, who has been with Blue 449 for more than two years, will be responsible for the adoption of the Blue 449 global process into the agency across both the strategy and planning teams. The move comes off the back of the agency’s name change from Match Media in January and the gradual adoption of the Blue 449 philosophy and processes. Blue 449’s open source philosophy is about welcoming input from beyond tits own walls, “creating a network of talent, of weaving together data and ideas and breaking down silos”.

Griffin and Schaak Join PublicisQ

Queensland-based creative agency PublicisQ has announced the appointment of Lee Griffin as creative director and David Schaak as the agency’s first head of art. PublicisQ executive creative director Ryan Petie said the new appointments represented a significant elevation in the agency’s creative capabilities, with the new executives bringing a combination of international award-winning work and big-brand experience. Griffin has been appointed PublicisQ creative director after working for four years in Nashville, Tennessee. He started his career in Queensland and in addition to his advertising focus he is also the co-owner and creative director of drum innovators Mothertone, as well as creative director of Americana Music Tours. His creative brand experience includes Suncorp, Isuzu, Sanofi, Bulla, AirAsia, V8 Supercars, Subway Restaurants, ANZ, L'Oreal, Tatts Lotteries and Bundaberg Brewed Drinks. Schaak joins as PublicisQ’s first head of art after a 20-year career as an art director, designer, coder and musician. He worked for 11 years at Publicis Melbourne and has brand experience including Bulla, the National Basketball League, Nestle, Tourism Victoria, Nike, Toyota, L'Oreal and Hertz. He also created the virtual reality creative tool, Situ, which has recently seen a highly successful global launch at Cannes.

Ooyala appoints Sydney-based VP for JAPAC

Video moenetstasion software platform Ooyala has appointed Jeremy Cath as vice president, services, Asia Pacific and Japan. Based in Sydney, Cath will be responsible for ensuring successful customer deployments of Ooyala IVP (Integrated Video Platform) solutions, including OVP (online video platform), media asset management, and video advertising technology, throughout the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining Ooyala, Cath was based in the US for more than 10 years during which time he worked for both Microsoft and Amazon in various roles. He's also worked with many household names including NBC Sunday Night Football, the Olympics, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Netflix, PBS and ABC in the world of online media.

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