303 MullenLowe has lured former Initiative CEO Andrew Livingston back to Sydney to join the agency as managing partner of its media division.
Livingston departed Initiative at the end of last year, a year after he moved to the COO role and Lee Leggett stepped up to CEO.
At the time IPG Mediabrand’s chairman Henry Tajer said it wasn’t a demotion, but it was seen as a step down for Livingston across the industry.
Prior to his role as COO of Initiative Group, he was the CEO for nearly three years. He replaces Gavin Gibson who is moving to San Francisco. He had only been in the role for 18 months, joining for OMD.
303 Mullen Lowe CEO Nick Cleaver says: “We’re delighted Andrew is coming on board to lead our integrated media offer. He represents our intent and commitment to making sure our media product has the best talent within it."
“Andrew’s tremendous experience across the breadth of media disciplines and his track record of delivering growth are exciting qualities we feel will really enhance our capabilities and business.”
Prior to joining Initiative, he was the head of client communications planning at Mediacom for nearly six years. In the year since he departed Initiative, Livingston has been in London.
Livington says he is looking forward to bringing his expertise to a "'hyper-bundled agency environment'".
“I have immense respect for the multidisciplinary model that 303 MullenLowe has created. Having advertising, strategy, data, PR, digital and media buying all sitting together under one roof, without walls or silos, is a compelling approach to developing better client solutions," he says.
He replaces Gavin Gibson who has only been in the role for 18 months, joining for OMD.
“Gavin added enormously to our media smarts by creating a new programmatic trading desk and a new data analytics capability. While we’re sad to lose him, we’re looking forward to growing our media capabilities further in 2017 under Andrew’s leadership,” Clever says.
Livingston joins 303 MullenLowe in January 2017.
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