…as the Marketing Association ramps up its, er, marketing with a new human in a newly created role; Martine Jager returns from Australia to join Westpac New Zealand’s marketing team; Radio New Zealand announces its new board; TrinityP3 downsizes and St John Craner moves to the country; Syro Communications announces a staffing coup; International Rescue adds a generous photographer to its ranks; and a Kiwi expat gets a plum Asia Pacific posting with Interpublic’s Mediabrands.
Fit to fly
The Marketing Association has appointed Jo Clark as its general manager of marketing to look after membership and the overall marketing of the MA brand. She comes to the newly created role after more than 20 years in the health and fitness industry.
She started out as a lifeguard and swimming teacher in the UK, was centre manager for over 10 years and managed seven different facilities, including two new gym openings in the UK (including Fitness First, the largest operator in the UK), large leisure centres and aquatics sites.
When she arrived in New Zealand she opened a new gym in Botany in 2003 and was responsible for sales and marketing, as well as overall club management. She then spent five years at YMCA in various roles, including fitness operations manager, general manager fitness and training (overseeing the fitness clubs, sales, membership and training), and general manager marketing and training.
Clark has a B.Sc. (Joint Hons) in Psychology and Physical Education, a Certificate in Business Management (UK) and is a qualified NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) practitioner. In 2009 she completed the Marketing Association’s Certificate in Direct Marketing and was the top student nationally, which resulted in a scholarship to complete the Certificate in e-Marketing, in which she also received honours.
Currently she is chair of the Register of Exercise Professionals for New Zealand and also sits on the Fitness NZ board.
Jager Meister
Martine Jager has been appointed as the general manager of marketing and customer experience for Westpac New Zealand. Previously she worked as general manager of marketing and research for NAB Australia and also for Air New Zealand.
Faces for radio
Richard Griffin, PR man, former political journo and past press secretary to Jim Bolger, has moved up one spot from deputy to chairman of the Radio New Zealand board of governors, replacing outgoing chairwoman Christine Grice. And former journalist and radio entrepreneur Josh Easby has been appointed as his deputy.
According to the Herald, “Griffin is well known in political and media circles with close friends including Bill Ralston, Ian Fraser, Mark Sainsbury and Paul Holmes”.
Sheena Henderson, a Christchurch-based consultant specialising in branding, marketing and corporate advisory work who was a former global brand director for Fonterra, and Deborah Taylor, a self-employed business consultant from Queenstown who was a former director and principal of a chartered accountants firm, have also joined the board. Former National Cabinet minister Paul East had his term extended.
Down on the farm
St John Craner, the former manager of Wellington-based, Aussie-owned pitch consultants TrinityP3, has shifted to Napier to joined ‘heartland agency’ Tracta as business development manager. Tracta rebranded from Adplus in September last year.
Craner, who will focus on agri-business, has worked in the communications industry for over fifteen years and has worked with McCann Erickson (UK) & Young & Rubicam (NZ) on Volvo, Lloyds TSB, Telecom NZ, National Bank and Massey University. He also spent time client-side as national brand and sponsorship manager for Westpac, Contact Energy and New Zealand Post.
Meanwhile, TrinityP3’s chief pitch doctor Darren Woolley has moved the office up to Auckland and he will run it from Sydney.
Brand new
Well-known brand strategist Andrew Pankhurst has joined marketing and communications project management company Syro Communications.
“This is a real coup for us here at Syro. Andrew is respected in the industry for his visionary approach to developing brand strategies. Up until last year he was managing director of Wellington based, Totem, and we’re delighted to be able to welcome him aboard,” says Sylvia Smith, Syro’s project director.
With 20 years’ experience in the industry, he has been involved in the development and management of a number of well-known brand strategies and identities, such Mojo Coffee, Argent Metals Technology, Rio Tinto Aluminium, ESR, Plant & Food Research, Capacity, Masterfoods, Carter Holt Harvey Tissue, SPARC, Statistics New Zealand, Families Commission, Wellington City Council and Housing New Zealand.
To the rescue
International Rescue has added Nic Staveley, who specialises in portraiture, to its roster.
“He’s keen to break into the ad scene and will shoot any creative director for free,” says agent/producer Hannah Tatton ([email protected]). Free? “Yup. Whatever will get him in there.” Staveley’s portfolio can be viewed at www.internationalrescue.com.
Garden of Eden
Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands announced today the appointment of New Zealand expat Eden Engelken as director of infrastructure and operations, Asia Pacific. Based in Singapore, he will be responsible for managing Mediabrands’ technology infrastructure across global and local markets as well as ensuring technology delivery with rigour and governance across all projects.
He joins Mediabrands from BHP Billiton, where he served as transition programme manager, where he was responsible for the management and transition of technology infrastructure and applications services into a new outsourced environment.
Prior to this, he worked for Hewlett Packard Australia.
“Joining Mediabrands is an exciting opportunity for a technology professional, as it is rare to find companies applying the value of technology both internally and externally to the organisation to deliver strategic value. I am particularly excited about working to implement the investments Mediabrands have made, to offer our clients solutions which allow them to make more effective marketing decisions.”
He will provide leadership to a team of business intelligence and data analysts creating customised, data-driven marketing solutions based on Mediabrands’ Marketing Intelligence Platform (MIP), which provides clients with seamless access to aggregated data through the use of a single easy-to-use dashboard interface accessible via the web.
