News Bulletin: Omnicom US settles discrimination case; Spotify's Robins promoted

By AdNews | 8 January 2018
 
Plaintiff Matthew Christiansen and his attorney Susan Chana Lask

Discrimination case settled

Global marketing and communications holding group Omnicom has reached a settlement in the anti-day discrimination case regarding its creative agency DDB, according to Adweek. The case first kicked off in 2015 and went through many ups and downs including a dismissal by a US District Court Judge in 2016, before the plaintiff, former DDB creative director Matt Christiansen, successfully appealed earlier this year. The initial complaint was regarding “discrimination, harassment and victimisation … because of an HIV disability”. The defendants named in the case were Omnicom; DDB New York and its former chief digital officer Joe Cianciotto; its current CEO Chris Brown and its former CEO Peter Hempel. This week, a holding company representative confirmed the settlement, saying: “the matter has been resolved amicably and Matt is not returning to the agency.”

See: DDB New York sued for gay discrimination

Spotify's Dan Robins promoted to APAC role

Music streaming giant Spotify, which is set to go public on the New York Stock Exchange this year, has promoted Dan Robins to head of programmatic and data APAC. Prior to the new role he was responsible for Australia and New Zealand. Joining the Sydney-based music platform in April last year, Robins was previously of head of interactive at OMD. 

See: OMD's Dan Robins joins Spotify to lead programmatic offering

Foxtel owners end carriage fee dispute

Following a dispute over carriage fees between Foxtel owners News Corp and Telstra, in relation to Sky News Australia, the duo have reached a deal to keep broadcasting the channel on the pay TV network. According to The Australian, News Corp, which fully-owns Sky News, wanted Foxtel to up the annual fee it pays for the channel. However, shareholder Telstra, which owns 50% of Foxtel, was against the increase. The newspaper says the previous carriage fee was about $30 million a year and has not changed in more than a decade. It's thought an agreement was reached as part of wider discussions between Foxtel and Fox Sports ahead of their planned merger announced at the end of 2017. Full details of the new deal are yet to be revealed. 

See: Murdoch sells 21st Century Fox to Disney in major media merger.

Rubicon Australia boss exits for UK role

Rubicon Project Australia country manager Simone Krakowiak has relocated to the UK to take up a global leadership role outside of Rubicon. She is the second senior female ad tech leader to exit the ad tech space Down Under in the last two months. In November Rocket Fuel Australia's country lead Mailee Creacy left to return to the US. Rohan Creasey now takes Krakowiak's spot and will be responsible for driving business development efforts and the adoption of Rubicon's automated advertising exchange across the Australia and New Zealand markets. Creasey joined Rubicon Project in 2013 as manager, solutions engineering for Japan and Asia Pacific. He has also held various operations and account management roles at Dennis Publishing, Adify and New Scientist in the UK.

See: We don't have enough women, we're trying but we can all try harder

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