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Movings/Shakings: 4 May

May the fourth be with you as Contagion announces a creative promotion and a new piece of business, McDonald’s adds two to the grill, Rawdon Christie makes it an English breakfast, nzgirl finds its new general manager, Datamine welcomes a new geek, Sir Dryden Spring steps down and Phantom Billstickers crows about a new Auckland site. 

Verity good

Following on from the appointment of Richard Thompson last week, Contagion has promoted Verity Dookia to deputy creative director.

“Verity is that wonderful balance of superb talent and super personality. She also has this way of making everything seem easy, which isn’t surprising given she’d won almost every award under the sun before she turned 25,” says Bridget Taylor, managing partner and creative director.

Dookia, who previously worked with Taylor at DDB Auckland, joined the agency six months ago after returning from Ireland. She began her creative life as a copywriter in a small town radio station and has also worked with TBWA Auckland, The Hive Dublin and Publicis QMP Dublin with brands such as adidas, Volkswagen, PlayStation, ASB Bank, Cadbury, Sky Television, and News International. She has won a Grand Prix at Cannes, pencils at D&AD, One Show, AWARD, Grand Clio and golds at AXIS.

“I wanted to work with Bridget again,” she says. “She inspires the best and her sense of humour helps the days go by in the best possible way.”

Dookia recently worked on the Judge the Jury TVNZ AXIS campaign and Taylor says she has been instrumental in winning the Tasti business.

And adding to that win, Contagion has also shacked up with the Sir Peter Blake Trust and has developed the new positioning line: Dare to Dream.

“Sir Peter Blake was an extraordinary man who challenged us all to dare to dream,” says Taylor. “[Sir Peter Blake Trust chief executive] Shelley Campbell and the trust are continuing his great work to inspire and guide the next New Zealand leaders. It’s very important to us to support and recognise New Zealand talent, having worked overseas we know how lucky we are here and want to help water the poppies, not knock them down.”

Campbell says it takes a daring person to dream and break out of the grey of the everyday.

“That is why we liked the energy, originality and ideas that Contagion brought to us with Dare to Dream,” she says.

Burger rings

McDonald’s New Zealand has named Chris Brown as its director of marketing and Jacky Hollingsworth as chief of finance.

Brown, who has been working in Australia for the past eight years, is a highly experienced marketer, having built his career within the automotive industry working for several premium car companies such as Renault and BMW. He was also announced as one of the Adnews ‘Top 40 Under 40’ marketers in Australia for 2008.

Hollingsworth takes over from Quentin Smith who has moved into a newly formed business partner role. She has been with McDonald’s since September 2011 as finance manager. Before that she contracted to various businesses in the areas of finance support and business systems development and has also previously held finance & information manager and commercial manager positions with Ferrit.co.nz and Telecom respectively.

These two appointments follow the announcement earlier this year that Patrick Wilson has moved into the role of managing director, taking over from Mark Hawthorne, who has moved to Singapore to take on a regional manager role for the Asia, Pacific, Middle East, Africa region.

English breakfast

TVNZ has announced that Rawdon Christie will be the new weekday co-host of Breakfast, replacing Corin Dann in the Monday to Friday slot as he leaves to take up the post of TVNZ’s political editor.

Christie is currently hosting the Saturday edition of the show with Toni Street and he is also a newsreader for Breakfast, Midday and the 4:30pm ONE News bulletin.

“We are very pleased to have secured Rawdon in this full time role of Breakfast co-host,” says editor of daily programmes John Gillespie. “Rawdon has the kind of journalistic integrity, insight and personality that our viewers really enjoy.”

Originally from Oxford, Christie is an award-winning journalist who began his career with the BBC in the UK. In 2003 he accepted a position in New Zealand with ONE News. In that time, he has also hosted Agenda, worked on Close Up, and anchored TVNZ’s coverage of the two major Christchurch earthquakes

“I love hosting Saturday Breakfast, and so to be able to present Breakfast five days a week is, for me, the perfect job,” he says. “I know the team well from reading the news, and filling in for Corin, and so I’m very excited to be taking on such a prominent role with the show.”

Christie will take up his new position on Breakfast on 14 May. His replacement on Saturday Breakfast will be announced in the coming weeks.

Law and order

Jenene Freer recently resigned as managing director of nzgirl and has taken on a board-level directorship only. And Hayley Law has been named as the new general manager.

“With more than 20 years experience in media sales, Hayley brings to the team a passion for pipelines, client results and centralising systems and processes,” says Freer. “The team and I are thoroughly enjoying having a focused manager in the team driving the company forward. We look forward to continuing to play a key role in helping brands engage with the women of New Zealand.”

Inheriting the Earth

Pieta Brown is the newest geek to join the Datamine family.

She’s ex Deloitte Consulting and graduated from the University of Auckland with a conjoint in law and science and honours in statistics, with a dissertation looking at methods for analysing genetic data.

“As a true geek, Brown has represented New Zealand twice at the International Maths Olympiad and has senior prizes in both mathematics and law from Auckland University,” says technical services manager Cliff Ashford. “She’s the one to talk to if you want to discover the spatial movement of animals, and brings with her a wide range of skills, having tutored in mathematics, statistics and computer science … We’re excited about the skills Pieta brings to the table. They complement our existing team, which is growing rapidly.”

 Spring dries up

Sir Dryden Spring will retire as a director and as chairman of the Board of ANZ National Bank on 22 June.

He was a director of The National Bank of New Zealand Limited from 1994 which amalgamated with ANZ National Bank Limited in 2004 and continued as a director of ANZ National Bank Limited, and was subsequently appointed board chairman on 16 June 2006.

ANZ National Bank Limited board director, John Judge, will take over as chairman. Judge is currently audit committee chairman and has been a member of the board since 2008. He has a number of directorships and board memberships including being a director of Fletcher Building, chairman of ACC and is an advisory board member of the University of Otago Business School.

Poster child

Phantom Billstickers has secured a “super high profile site” on Gillies Ave in Newmarket.

“36,000 cars pass this site everyday,” says operations manager Robin McDonnell. “Now when you’re stuck in traffic you’ll have something purdy to look at. We think that’s pretty ace.”

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