fbpx

Holt! Who goes there?

Andrew Holt, currently a group account director at Colenso BBDO, will be shifting south, moving up the executive chain and battling the breeze after being appointed as managing director of Clemenger BBDO in Wellington.

Since the start of 2009 Holt has been responsible for managing the Vodafone business across the Clemenger Group as well as the highly awarded Yellow account.

Hailing from the UK (bloody hell, another one?), Holt began his career at BMP DDB in London in 1997 working across major clients including Anheuser Busch, British Gas, Kraft Foods and the Government Central Office of Information.

He moved to Australia in 2003 and worked for Lowe Hunt where he became a client services director and in 2006 he joined the management team at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney, leading the Foxtel, Fox Sports and Aussie accounts alongside new business wins for Macquarie Capital and NSW Department of Commerce.

Clems’ Previous managing director Lesley Brown, who took over from Peter Biggs, departed about two years ago to have a baby and chose not to come back after maternity leave. She was replaced by Kevin Stroud, but this was only ever as an interim measure as Stroud had worked there for 20 years and was keen to escape to daily advertising grind. He announced his resignation in April but he will still be consulting.

Clemenger Group chief executive Jim Moser says the powers that be had “started looking at what we needed long-term”, so Holt’s appointment is hoped to inject some spark into the Wellington operation.

“I have known and respected Andrew for years, first in Sydney and now in Auckland. Since his arrival at Colenso BBDO almost two years ago, he has made a hugely positive impact on the agency and most importantly, on our clients’ business,” Moser says. “Andrew was always destined for an agency leadership role and we’re thrilled that his next challenge is within the Clemenger Group.”

Clems executive creative director and chief executive Philip Andrew say Holt has a strong strategic skill set and he also ‘gets’ the work.

“He is a passionate advocate for challenging creative work converting to business success. I can’t wait for him to start and we are all looking forward to the time when he will call Wellington home.”

Holt will start his new role on 1 December and his replacement at Colenso will be announced in the coming weeks.

While the managing director role has been filled, creative director Paul Nagy, who left in May to start as creative director at Clemenger BBDO in Sydney, has not been replaced. A few months ago, Philip Andrew said the CD role is a very important one and it’s not a decision to be rushed into. Added to that, he said “they’re few and far between at the moment”. And while Moser says the group is always on the look-out for creative talent, having Holt start as the new managing director means there’s a chance it might not hire anyone to replace Nagy, as he says Duster is looking at doing a bit more of the creative directing.

About Author

Comments are closed.