Musical chairs
Fairfax Media’s sales team has some fresh faces in it with three appointments over the last month.
Janet Smith has taken on the role of national sales director – direct, reporting to group sales director, Gareth Codd. She will oversee the planning, approach and execution of all direct sales strategies and programmes.
Smith moved to New Zealand two years ago, having held several senior regional sales roles in some of the largest media companies in the UK, including DGMT and The Guardian. She has since lead Fairfax’s Sale Transformation programme for the past 18 months to drive business change.
Gerard Watt has been appointed operations director – publishing, a new position created to maximise publishing efficiency.
He has been with Fairfax since 2005, joining as marketing manager central region and in the same year was promoted to general manager at Manawatu. He became general manager Waikato region in 2008, before moving into the central region general manager role in 2011.
According to Fairfax, Watt has a wealth of publishing and marketing experience and is ideally placed to help it drive its strategy and manage key stakeholder relationships.
“His ideas, enthusiasm, drive and great management style will be hugely helpful as we protect and strengthen our market position,” it said.
As a result of these changes, the regional general manager roles were disestablished and northern region general manager David Penny and southern region general manager Phil Marshall-Lee have now left the business.
Also earning a new title is Ursula Mattar who has been appointed digital commercialisation director in Auckland. The newly created role gives her responsibility across the digital revenue streams to drive greater efficiency in digital and site monetisation.
Mattar has spent the past two years managing and working on and various digital projects across Fairfax, with more than a decade at the forefront of the New Zealand digital media industry. According to Fairfax, she has a breadth of industry knowledge, and brings strategic and forward-thinking attitude to the digital division.
Returning for more
Colenso BBDO has a new senior art director in Andrew Sallowicz who has returned permanently to the agency after living in South America for five years working for Almap BBDO in Brazil. He completed a three-month exchange at Colenso in 2014.
Andre Sallowicz and Simon Vicars
During his previous stint at Colenso BBDO, he helped conceptualise DB Export ‘Brewtroleum’, alongside Matt Lawson, Brett Colliver and Simon Vicars.
“Colenso has a huge reputation around the world for doing ideas that seem impossible and I could taste that my first time here. So the invitation to come back and work with Simon, an outstanding copywriter, was perfect. I’m looking forward to working with Wortho, this great team and the best clients in New Zealand,” says Sallowicz.
Chief creative officer Nick Worthington says the agency is excited to have Sallowicz back and has high expectations.
Taking the lead
Agency mediaR has announced the appointment of Ant Matson to the position of business development director.
Matson joins from MediaWorks where he held the role of general sales manager for Auckland. His previous roles also include a stint at NZME, and niche agency Fifteen230 which he founded in late 1999.
mediaR director Tony Richards says it started looking for someone to fill the role of business development director earlier in the year and is “thrilled” Matson accepted the role.
He says Matson will bring an exciting dynamic to the agency team that will also be experienced by mediaR’s clients.
Taking the chair
PwC New Zealand partner and national assurance leader Michele Embling has been appointed chair of the New Zealand firm for a four-year term, effective 1 October.
Embling has been a partner at the firm for 11 years, a member of the executive team for four years and has spent a total of almost 16 years there.
She succeeds Jonathan Freeman, who has been chairman since June 2012. He will complete his term on 30 September and continue as a senior assurance partner.
CEO and senior partner Bruce Hassall said it’s a pleasure to welcome Embling as the next chair.
“Michele has led our assurance practice for the past three years and has a successful track record of leading transformation projects. She is widely respected in the market for her ability to influence and bring people together.”
A bustle of appointments
Auckland-based creative PR and brand agency Hustle & Bustle has announced Henry Hewat as creative director.
Hewat joins the agency after successful stints at Colenso BBDO and Clemenger Sydney and will lead the overall creative strategy and output for Hustle & Bustle’s portfolio of clients.
Magdalen Ford, Claudia Capp, Henry Hewat, Gemma Ross, Andrea Hammond,Juliana Decanine, Adam Szentes, Mitch Shi
The agency is also thrilled to announce a number of client service and management appointments including: Juliana Decanine as account director; Magdalen Ford as account manager; Kate Rose as activation manager and Mitch Shi as finance manager.
The appointments follow Hustle & Bustle’s establishment of teams on the ground in Sydney and Singapore with the company firmly setting its sights on an international network that supports New Zealand and Australian brands that are focused on growing through the Asia Pacific Region.
Joining the team
Uno Loco has a new addition to the team as Cara Cantwell steps in as event producer.
Cantwell joins from Crackerjack Promotions where she managed public and corporate events, specialising in entertainment. For the last six years she ran the Auckland International Buskers’ Festival, sourcing performers from across the globe.
CEO Blair Glubb says Cantwell is “all about creating memorable events” and complimented her for her ability to organise public parades in a hurry.
“When the All Blacks looked like they were hurtling towards a Rugby World Cup win in 2011 her team had to organise the All Blacks Queen Street Parade in one week. Parade all in place, all the All Blacks had to do was win. Luckily we know the happy end to that particular story.”
Crossing the ditch
TVNZ has appointed Prime Media Group’s national sales organization Seven Affiliate Sales (SAS) as its advertising sales representative in Australia.
The appointment of SAS comes as TVNZ plans to boost its profile in the Australian advertising market.
TVNZ general manager direct and regional sales, Glenn McGahan says TVNZ is looking forward to working in partnership with Seven Affiliate Sales to increase its presence and grow its customer base in Australia over the next few years.
“SAS will give us the depth and breadth across the Australian metropolitan and regional markets that we’ve never had before. It puts more people on the ground to support and deliver greater value to our advertisers and agency partners,” McGahan says.
Prime Media Group general manager sales and marketing Dave Walker says it looks forward to offering Australian advertisers the opportunity to extend their reach into the New Zealand market.
The partnership between TVNZ and Seven Affiliate Sales is effective immediately.
New talent
Production company Photoplay has welcomed new photography talent with internationally award winning photographers Mark Clinton, Michael Corridore, Tamara Dean, John Feely, Troy Goodall and Jouk Oosterhof joining the team.
The new talent comes as the company unveils a new dedicated arm to represent high-end artistic photographers alongside its film directors.
Oliver Lawrance and Alison Lydiard
Heading up the arm is partner and executive producer Alison Lydiard, whose previous roles include the general manager of Griffin Theatre Company and producer of Publicis Mojo’s Roche Contemporary Art Prize. She has also worked as a senior art buyer at Saatchi & Saatchi and as creative services manager at Y&R.
Photoplay executive producer Oliver Lawrance said: “Launching a photography arm of Photoplay is exciting yet it also feels like a natural progression from the kind of work we already do as narrative filmmakers, especially in the digital age, where storytellers are increasingly working across both film and photography. I’m thrilled to have our photographers and film directors working in a creative space which encourages this kind of cross-pollination and collaboration from the outset.”
