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.
UM's Fiona Johnston takes on global role
Fiona Johnston, CEO of UM Australia, has been promoted to a new international role within Mediabrands. She has been appointed chief growth officer, Mediabrands, Global/EMEA, and will move to the UK. Johnston has been CEO of UM Australia since October 2017. Based in London, Johnston’s international role will include creating and curating growth in support of both Global and EMEA markets, to deliver market advantage to existing and potential clients. She will also be taking a lead in working with Mediabrands parent company, IPG, on group co-ordination. Johnston’s replacement as CEO of UM Australia has been appointed and will be announced soon.
Nicole Bence named chair of IAB board
Nicole Bence, network digital sales director at Seven West Media, has been appointed chair of the IAB Australia Board. She succeeds Matt Rowley, CEO of Pedestrian Group, who has been chair since January 2019. She has been a member of the IAB Australia board since 2020. Bence will work closely with IAB Australia CEO, Gai Le Roy, on initiatives and programs to address key industry matters including the role of measurement ratings currency, preparation for changes to online identifiers such as cookies, continuing to drive programmatic transparency and input in the local Privacy Act review. She joined Seven West Media in February 2020 from Pacific Magazines, where she led its commercial team. Previously she was digital commercial director at NOVA Entertainment and led the sales and strategy for kidspot.com.au and taste.com.au at News Corp Australia’s NewsLifeMedia.
MediaCom elevates Nick Thomas
MediaCom thas promoted head of marketplace Nick Thomas to national head of investment. He will sit on the executive committee and will oversee all of MediaCom’s investment activity nationally. His new remit will now include partnering closely with Minsun Collier, the agency’s national head of digital, to create a powerful leadership duo. He will also be responsible for driving the agency product, talent, and culture. Thomas began his journey with MediaCom in 2012. He has worked with an array of world class marketers included P&G, KFC, Universal, Foxtel, Volkswagen, IKEA, Victorian Government, and for the last three and a half years, has lead the Sydney investment arm of the agency.
SCA announces two senior appointments
SCA has announced two senior digital audio appointments following the launch of LiSTNR last week. Grant Tothill has been named general manager, digital audio. Tothill, currently head of SCA Podcasting, will take on the additional role, responsible for bringing together all functional areas of the business to ensure SCA delivers on its digital audio ambitions particularly in relation to LiSTNR. Chris Johnson has been appointed to the newly created role head of digital and innovation. Johnson will continue to oversee the digital leadership team and manage the roadmap of SCA’s core digital products including LiSTNR. He will also now be responsible for establishing and managing SCA’s local and international digital partnerships. He will drive internal digital knowledge, collaboration and innovation to ensure SCA stays ahead of emerging trends and opportunities in the digital audio space.
QMS strengthens pDOOH team
QMS has expanded its customer focused team with the promotion of senior sales leaders and the creation of Programmatic and IMPULSE general managers to enhance client servicing and drive new revenue and market share. In Sydney, Nicole Pennells, Elliot Devine and Claire Allison have been promoted to group business directors. Both Pennells and Devine will lead group agency teams whilst Allison will head the independent agencies and direct sales team in market. The Melbourne team will see Jess Zavecz, Alana Begbie, Tara O’Keefe and Tim Stevenson also elevated to group business directors with Zavecz, Begbie and O'Keefe spearheading the group agency teams and Stevenson leading the Victorian independent agencies and direct sales team.
Amobee's Krish Raja joins Captify
Global search intelligence business Captify has announced that former Amobee executive Krish Raja has joined its leadership team as general manager for Captify Australia to build and grow the company’s business within the market. In this newly-created role, Raja will be responsible for managing all facets of Captify’s operations in Australia as the company grows adoption of its suite of privacy-first search intelligence products across audience planning, programmatic media activation and insights in a post-cookie world. With over a decade of experience across digital, broadcasting and programmatic platforms, Raja has held global and strategic regional growth roles across multiple markets. Most recently in his three years with demand-side platform (DSP) Amobee, Raja served as director, product and platform strategy, working to help brands adopt new and innovative strategies such as CTV and video, as well as playing a wider role across all parts of the company, such as sales, marketing and analytics.
Hearts & Science appoints Melbourne digital boss
Hearts & Science, part of Omnicom Media Group (OMG), has appointed Tom Leahey as head of digital for Melbourne to oversee Hearts’ integrated digital and data proposition in the local market. Leahey brings a wealth of experience to the position. In his most recent role, he was responsible for setting up the internal programmatic trading desk, establishing and developing a full programmatic technology stack and the related audience data play to enable the offering. Prior to that Leahey held various programmatic and search leadership roles within OMG’s OMD after arriving from the UK in 2015.
Promotions at AnalogFolk
Creative agency AnalogFolk has promoted long-term senior staff Jonny Sycamore to client service director and Emily Entwisle to operations director. Entwisle and Sycamore have been with the agency for six years and sit on the agency’s management board. Entwisle was previously head of production, and along with her role in Sydney, has been part of AnalogFolk’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Committee. In her new role as operations director, she will focus on driving collaboration amongst AnalogFolk’s global network, improving speed and efficiency within the agency, as well as collaborating with local partners. In the newly created client service director role, Sycamore will head up both client service and delivery across AnalogFolk’s growing base of local and global clients.
Impact expands APAC team
Partnership automation company Impact has announced the creation of two senior Asia-Pacific (APAC) roles and the continued expansion of its APAC-wide team. Sam Morton has been promoted from account director to the new role of partnership director, APAC where he will be focusing on establishing, activating and growing partnerships across the Australian, New Zealand and South-East Asian Markets. Peter Bray takes on the role of sales director, APAC where he will be responsible for expanding the Impact Partnership Cloud customer footprint across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.
Apparent creates new roles
Full service independent agency Apparent has promoted long serving account management executive Brook Miller to the newly created role of client services director and Candice Lombard has been promoted to integration director. Miller has risen through the ranks of Apparent over the past nine years and is instrumental in managing the development of its relationships with global clients including US-based Cisco, VMware and LinkedIn. Starting as an account manager when there were just 15 employees, she now leads client services at the agency which has a team of more than 120 and in excess of 30 clients. Before joining she worked at BMF and Euro RSCG. Lombard has been promoted to integration director, a newly created role to lead operations across account and creative services teams. She joined Apparent in 2019 as a business director and has also worked at R/GA, Cummins & Partners and Sibling.
Showpony Adelaide's new MD
Sophie Young has been appointed managing director of the 25-year-old agency Showpony Adelaide, marking a significant shift for the South Australian creative industry. She is the only female leader of a large creative agency in Adelaide. Founders Jamie Scott and Parris Mesidis are happy to see the agency under the leadership of Young and creative director Rory Kennet-Lister. Scott and Mesidis will maintain a strong connection to the agency overall but will turn their attention to client strategy and the agency’s growing Melbourne office. Young has been an integral part of Showpony’s history in Adelaide, joining as an account manager in 2006. Despite a three-year absence to take up a management role in New York, she returned in 2014 as account director and partner, then general manager.
Houston Group promotes
Strategic brand and design agency Houston Group has announced the internal promotion of Joanna Lilley to the role of managing director. Since joining Houston in 2015 Lilley has been a key player in the agency’s large scale brand transformation projects including the recent brand development for Toyota and the return of iconic Australian fuel brand Ampol. In her new role, she will be responsible for driving the agency’s consulting offer, leading the team on deep business
engagement and helping clients navigate the internal process of brand and cultural transformation. Prior to Houston, Lilley held senior account management roles at Droga5 and Moon Communications leading key clients such as Westfield, Woolworths, Sydney Opera House and Tourism Australia.
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