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Senior strategist joins EightyOne
Tom Sykes has joined EightyOne.
Independent creative agency EightyOne has appointed Tom Sykes as executive strategy director, adding significant strategic experience to the agency’s senior leadership team.
Sykes has spent more than two decades helping shape strategy for many of New Zealand’s best-known and most admired brands. He brings deep experience across brand, customer and business strategy, along with a reputation for combining commercial clarity with creative ambition.
He will work alongside EightyOne’s existing strategy and creative leadership team, partnering with clients across brand, communications and business challenges.
A rare strategist
EightyOne executive creative director and co-founder Chris Bleackley says the appointment reflects the agency’s ambition to bring together the strongest strategic and creative thinking possible.
“Tom is one of those rare strategists who combines experience with curiosity, commercial thinking with creativity, and intelligence with humility,” said Bleackley.
“He has helped shape some of New Zealand’s most successful brands, but what excites us most is the way he thinks. He asks better questions, gets to the heart of a business problem and understands how strategy can unlock more ambitious creative work.”
Bleackley says the appointment comes at an important stage in the agency’s development: “We’ve spent the past year building stronger foundations for the next phase of EightyOne. Tom’s appointment is a big part of that.
“Our ambition is simple: to do work that has a genuine impact on our clients’ businesses and earns a place in culture. Great creativity needs great strategy behind it, and Tom adds even more weight to that belief.”
