MediaCom chief executive Toby Jenner has fired a broadside at rival agency UM claiming they are poaching his senior staff, highlighting the talent shortage agencies are facing.
UM has hired MediaCom group strategy director Stefan Burford as its new chief strategy officer, who has been immediately replaced by strategist Mat Maroni.
Jenner said of Burford's defection to UM: "We're again flattered that Henry [Tajer, Mediabrands executive chairman] seems to want to create a mini-MediaCom having again come to us for one of his management team. Having been promoted from one of our strategy managers last year it'll be a big step up but I'm sure he'll be a great success at a mid-sized agency like UM."
Rather than hire from a competitor, Jenner said he was committed to investing in MediaCom's exisiting staff: "It gives us the ability to promote from within starting with the announcement that we are promoting Mat Maroni to strategy director. We will look to replace Stef in due course."
The MediaCom Australasia CEO claimed UM has repeatedly raided MediaCom for senior staff hires. The most notable hire was former MediaCom chief strategy officer Mat Baxter, who joined UM as chief executive late last year. Jenner said UM's other MediaCom hires include Wendy Gower and Marcella Hoyek.
AdNews approached Tajer, who is also chairman of the Media Federation of Australia (MFA), for a comment but he was unavailable at the time of publication.
One media agency boss told AdNews that some agencies are struggling to fill positions, with one said to be struggling to plug around 20 vacancies following a sizeable new business win. The industry wide staff shortage has led some agencies to look overseas for new recruits.
The Communcations Council chief executive Daniel Leesong said "agency hopping" was less about a number drought and more about skills shortages.
He told AdNews: "We don't observe across the broader industry positions that need filling but there is a skills shortage, particularly in digital, and we're trying to bridge that gap with staff training. People are hopping from agency to agency and there a lot of reasons why that is happening, but the important thing is to get behind local training. We import a lot of skills from overseas but there's no reason why we can't build our own."
UM recently unveiled a new positioning under the banner "The Big Boutique", which involved a series of new hires, some of which are internal promotions, as revealed by AdNews last week.
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