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Matt Bain to join Spark as marketing director

Spark’s announced the appointment of Matt Bain to the role of marketing director alongside an internal restructure.

The role is a new one for Spark, and it will see Bain return to New Zealand for it in November. He’s currently European managing director for digital agency AKQA.

At AKQA, he’s built an international reputation with Nike, Heineken, Mini, Rolls Royce, Siemens, EASports, Audi, Phillips, Tommy Hilfiger and KLM amongst others. 

In his new role, Bain will bring his digital marketing and customer experience skills right into the centre of Spark’s thinking and actions.

Spark announced the marketing director role in March, the same time general manager of customer and marketing Clive Ormerod departed for Les Mills.

Ormerod is now CMO at Les Mills International after two-and-a-half years at Spark.

Bain’s appointment sees him join the “Leadership Squad”, alongside Melissa Anastasiou, Spark’s general counsel, whose promotion to the squad has also been announced.

There are eight members of the “Leadership Squad”, which also includes managing director Simon Moutter, customer director Jolie Hodson, finance director (CFO) David Chalmers, HR director Joe McCollum, product director Claire Barber and technology director Mark Beder.

The formation of the squad marks Spark’s move into its so-called “Agile” model”, which according to the announcement will involve “self-managing teams, each with clear accountabilities, who collaborate quickly and effectively with one another to deliver great products and services for customers.”

According to Reseller, last month Spark presented 1900 staff with new employment contracts offering five days to accept the new “Agile” way of working. Fewer than 200 staff will leave the company after not taking up roles in Agile. 

“That includes a significant number who, for a range of reasons, decided Agile wasn’t for them and opted out, as well as some people who wanted to work in Agile but were unsuccessful in finding a role,” a Spark spokesperson said to Reseller.

In Spark’s announcement of the changes, Moutter said it recognised from the outset that Agile may not suit everyone, so it gave its people working in these areas the option to apply for one of the new Agile roles, seek redeployment into another part of Spark, or opt for redundancy.

“As at the end of last week, more than 96 percent of our people offered “Agile” roles have accepted them and we are continuing to engage with the few remaining people to resolve any uncertainties they may have. We’ve worked extremely hard over the past six months to inform and engage our people about “Agile”, so we’re delighted that the overwhelming majority are looking enthusiastically to this
new way of working,” Moutter said.

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