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Movings/Shakings: 28 January

Back to the Tron

After 18 years with MediaWorks, the last four as chief executive of MediaWorks Radio, Belinda Mulgrew is departing.   

Here’s the staff announcement from chief executive Sussan Turner: 

Belinda has led MediaWorks Radio to a position of great strength in the market; with the highest revenue share and audience ratings in the company’s history.

We’ll miss Belinda greatly, but understand her reasons for going. Belinda made us aware some time ago she needed to spend more time in Hamilton, where she lives with her family, and focus on an expanding business she owns with her husband in the Waikato [Giltrap Engineering]. Her commitment to the company and her team has kept her in the role through a busy and challenging 2013, and she will leave us at the end of March.

On behalf of the Board and the Senior Management team, I want to thank Belinda for all she’s done for MediaWorks. The Radio team has delivered incredible results under her leadership, and she leaves the division in outstanding shape. We wish her all the best for the future.

MediaWorks is currently recruiting for the role. 

New Saatchians

In addition to the arrival of Isobel Kerr-Newell as communications director, Saatchi & Saatchi has welcomed a number of new hires. 

Susie Darling has joined as a senior account director and will be working on Toyota. She comes to Saatchi & Saatchi from DDB where she has been for the past 12 years, working on Volkswagen, Lion Breweries, Tourism Australia, Stihl and McDonald’s, and more recently helping to lead the successful BMW/Mini pitch. Key campaigns she was leading include ‘Be the Artist, not the canvas’ for Steinlager and ‘Beetling’. She replaces Brodie Reid, who has gone to Colenso BBDO.

Lucy Sparks has been appointed as a senior account manager. She will be working with Saatchi & Saatchi business leader Paul Wilson on DB, across Tui, Heineken and other agency projects. The pair were former colleagues at Colenso, working together on Westpac and BNZ. She also worked on Tourism Fiji, helping to develop its new brand after the account was won at pitch. 

Amy Hansen has joined as a producer, having returned to New Zealand in 2013 from time working in Sydney for Euro RSCG (now Havas Worldwide) in 2008 and later DDB Sydney as a producer, working across global and local clients. Joshua Forsman has also recently started with Saatchi & Saatchi as a producer. He previously worked with award-winning production company Assembly. Both of these roles are new. 

In other moves, Damian Ferigo has been appointed to the role of chief operating officer from his former position as chief financial officer. He has been with the agency since 1994 and has held various positions during his 19 years, including dual roles as finance director for Starcom New Zealand and acting CFO roles in Singapore and Sydney. He will be working closely with chief executive Nicky Bell and her leadership team on the continued evolution of the agency.

Lorraine Guerin has been promoted to the position of digital production director. She will be leading the agency’s digital team in partnership with Matt Skinner, who has also been promoted to the role of technical director. The pair will be overseeing the agency’s growing digital operation and have been behind recent successes including ‘Like Loan’ for ASB. Both joined Saatchi & Saatchi from time spent building their expertise in London, Guerin with Wunderman and Digitas and Skinner running his own web development company.

And, rounding out the changes, Teresa Davis has been promoted to the position of business director and is leading the integrated ASB business team. She has been working agency side for 14 years, mainly in customer relationship marketing, customer experience, direct and digital marketing roles. Prior to Saatchi & Saatchi she spent nearly four years with Rapp Tribal and more than eight years with Aim Proximity on two different occasions, separated by a stint at Big Communications. 

Following the lead 

​Vaughn Magnusson has left his post as chief executive of GrabOne and is now an advisor to taxi app Zoomy and Online Republic (check out our interview with the company’s co-founder and president Mike Ballantyne here).

Magnusson took over from founder and chief executive Shane Bradley last year (Bradley then went on to start up pet.co.nz) and before that he was chief financial officer and a key member of the firm’s leadership team since its launch.  

Sales director Ryan Watkins, who temporarily took over the top role from Magnusson when he went on holiday for six weeks last year, is now acting as general manger and the chief executive role is no more. 

Campbell Brown also left his role as marketing director at GrabOne in October last year to work with the same two companies (he’s a director with Zoomy and chief marketing officer at Online Republic). 

The drugs don’t work 

Two of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, Reckitt-Benckiser and Pfizer, have made a few high-level staff changes. 

At Reckitt, sales director Marc Reitsma has been promoted to country manager, replacing Adonis Souloglou. And Reitsma says marketing director Joerg Stockburger is also in the process of leaving.

He says the company is “putting marketing and trade marketing together”, which “allows us to have a much faster route to market”. He says these changes won’t necessarily decrease the number of team members. 

It’s thought New Zealand has been recategorised to an activation market, rather than a development market (Bayer also did something similar), so it will be more focused on sales. 

UPDATE: Here’s the official statement

Reckitt Benckiser (RB) NZ has made several structural changes that it believes will provide a competitive advantage through a more consumer and shopper-focused lens.

The company’s trade marketing and marketing functions have been re-organised into a single function responsible for consumer and shopper marketing.

The company says each category now has more focus behind it, with greater ownership.

The internal changes will allow greater access to regional and global resources for innovation and business development initiatives. This means higher quality initiatives, faster speed to the NZ market and greater focus on local roll out.  

Finally, there has been a change of leadership structure. The traditional roles of general manager, sales director and marketing director have been replaced with the roles of country manager and two heads of consumer and shopper marketing.

As of January 1, 2014, Marc Reitsma, currently sales director, became country manager. 

As a result Adonis Souloglou, general manager and Joerg Stockburger, marketing director, will be leaving RB, although not New Zealand. They will hand over to the new leadership over the first quarter of 2014 to ensure a smooth transition and minimal disruption to the business.

At Pfizer, it’s thought Frances Benge, who has been managing director for five years, is taking up an Asian role. And there have also been some changes to product manager roles (Pfizer comms manager Kathryn Swallow was unable to be contacted). 

Pfizer announced a restructure last year and big pharma in general has been under the cosh in recent years, with many of the big companies announcing some pretty savage job cuts and cost savings as the number of drug patents decreases and new revenue streams are sought. 

Bowing out of Bauer

There’s plenty of change at Bauer at the moment, too, and there’s likely to be even more of it after the Commerce Commission gave approval for it to acquire some of APN’s mags. And, following a review of the women’s titles sales structure, Lisa Hay has decided to leave the business to pursue other opportunities.

Hay joined Bauer nearly ten years ago and initially worked in the agency team before moving across to women’s mass market titles. More recently her focus has been on the two flagship titles Woman’s Day and Australian Women’s Weekly. 

“During her time at Bauer, Lisa worked on project teams to launch NW, Good Health and Lucky Break,” says commercial director Paul Gardiner. “She also ran one of the most successful 30 Days of Fashion and Beauty campaigns in 2012 and was acknowledged for her success by winning the ACP sales person of the year award. Lisa has also run a number of successful trade events, including hosting our top clients in Fiji for five consecutive years. Lisa is a true professional and I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her dedication, professionalism, passion and exceptional commitment to the business.”

Hay says she is planning her next move at the moment but nothing is confirmed as yet. If anyone would like to make contact with her, she can be reached on 027 527 9914 or [email protected]

In the Pond

The Pond has hired ex-Mojo (Sydney) creative services manager Angela Inglis as a senior talent agent. She’s crossed the ditch– and the fence—moving back from Sydney to take up the role.

Inglis has spent the past 13 years in agencies in Auckland and Sydney, long enough to develop experience touching on almost every aspect of the creative industry and a wide network on contacts.

“It’s still the same type of work as I’ve always done—aligning the right creative resources with briefs—it’s just that my office has changed from being in an agency to being in a talent agency,”  she says. 

Over recent years, she has seen the move from retainer to project-based work, as well as the rise of multi-discipline creative talent and digital integration. 

“Angela will be working closely with our junior talent agent Celine, another recent addition, from KAM Models & Talent,” says Pond director Leighton Howl. “We’re still dedicated to the local market but we will be putting more energy into the Australian and Asian markets this year.”

Inglis’ appointment also gets the thumbs up from leading executive creative directors on both sides of the Tasman.

Grant Rutherford, ECD of Mojo (Sydney) said: “Ange understands what it takes to build a creative department and individuals’ careers in equal measure. Her soul is truly creative. She understands implicitly how the creative mind is motivated and how it works. After all, as my EA it took her all of 10 seconds to work me out!”

Former WhybinTBWA ECD Andy Blood said: “Ange is driven, smart, funny, and incredibly organized. I’ve known her as a designer, as a DJ, as a fitness freak and also as my assistant. And she’s been incredible in each role. That’s great news for the Pond … in fact, where do I sign?”

While Jeremy Taine ECD at String Theory commented: “Great eye, excellent judge of character, the toughest hot chick outside the Pirate City Rollers”.

Savill Row

Celebrated new filmmaker Michelle Savill has joined Thick as Thieves for commercial representation.

“Michelle is a hugely talented and original filmmaker with true vision,” says executive producer Nik Beachman. “We think this will make her an inspiring choice in contemporary commercial content. We are all honored to welcome her on board.” 

Her acclaimed short film Ellen Is Leaving won best short film at the 2013 SXSW in Austin, Texas. 

Sea change    

Mike Dooley has been appointed to the position of business development manager with marinevouchers.com. He will be managing online advertising for the company’s key accounts.

Previously with Fruit Guys NZ, he has a Bachelor of Business studies from AUT where he majored in marketing and advertising.

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