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Wandering marcomms bedouins find gainful employment…

…as TBWA makes a couple more significant hires; Radio New Zealand splits up its Morning Report hosts; Clemenger Group continues to nurture youngsters after its inaugural Graduate Programme proved a success; Carat hunts for a new general manager; another old hand joins The Pond’s freelance ranks; Mango adds a trio to its events team; and the Ministry of Economic Development signs up an event advisor.  

Peaks and troughs

Anita Waugh and Natasja Barclay

After an ASB-related trough, TBWA is currently in an ANZ-related peak. It’s already made a couple of significant hires and Anita Waugh and Natasja Barclay have been signed up to fill two of the three new group head roles.

TBWA recently adopted a group head structure to give the agency a flatter and more direct reporting line and previous general manager Aaron Taylor declined to take up the group head role he was offered.

“Anita and Natasja will effectively run a group of accounts with a team each underneath them,” chief executive Dave Walden says. “I’m just delighted to have this calibre and quality of talent joining the agency. We made a strategic decision to invest at the top level and these appointments follow the addition of talent such as planning director Tracey Lee and the new managing director of Tequila, Geoff Devereux. The third group head will work primarily on ANZ and we are still searching for the right person. There’s a great sense of renewal and rejuvenation within the company after the disappointment of ASB last year. However, winning ANZ has brought with it a great shot in the arm and now, with the talent line-up that we have across the group, things are looking very positive.”

Waugh is a seasoned suit who joins TBWA after three years’ maternity leave. She led the Vodafone account at JWT Sydney and has worked as a group account director at M&C Saatchi Sydney and at Ogilvy London.

“The momentum around the addition of new experienced people, new clients and office renovations bodes well for enjoyable and exciting times ahead for our team and our clients,” she says.

Barclay has spent the past three years as group account director at Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland where she worked on accounts such as Telecom, Sanitarium, Sealord, Breast Cancer Research Trust and Griffins.

Tyranny of Distance?

Radio New Zealand’s has made some changes to its flagship news show Morning Report and it is now being co-presented from Auckland and Wellington.

Simon Mercep, who began his career with Radio New Zealand in 1983 and has worked in radio and television for five different public service broadcasters in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Britain, started broadcasting from Auckland on Monday, while long-time Morning Report host Geoff Robinson remained in Wellington.

“Simon is a seasoned broadcasting journalist and has tackled his new job [which he started in January]with energy and enthusiasm. He and Geoff make a great team,” says Radio New Zealand’s head of news, Don Rood. “Having Simon in Auckland will give Radio New Zealand more flexibility on news coverage, and provide the programme with studio quality interviews on major issues and stories in the region.”

“Morning Report’s large audience demonstrates that New Zealanders have an appetite for high quality, serious news. The public expects Report to keep them informed and Simon and Geoff do that every morning, holding people to account by asking the tough questions.”

Radio New Zealand already has significant resources allocated to its Auckland operations with a fully staffed newsroom of 15 journalists and specialist correspondents based at Radio New Zealand House in Hobson Street. So it’s not a huge stretch for the public broadcaster to make it work. Added to that, Jim Mora’s four hour Afternoons programme comes out of Auckland on week days, some of the regular Summer programming is based in the city, there is a features producer and Kathryn Ryan’s Nine to Noon has an Auckland based executive producer.

Quail hunting

Ryf Quail has swapped general manager roles, shifting from Carat to ZenithOptimedia.

The move comes at an interesting time, after Carat took the Nissan media buying account off Mitchells at the start of April. Carat’s parent company Aegis purchased Mitchells earlier this year for around AU$363 million.

Quail joined Carat in February 2009. A search is currently underway for a replacement

Bright young things

In January, ten graduates from universities around New Zealand were selected to join the inaugural Clemenger Group Graduate Programme and all of them have now been placed within Clemenger agencies on six-month paid placements in their chosen agency.

Each graduate was rotated through the majority of Clemenger companies in Auckland and Wellington and given exposure and training in the advertising, direct, digital and public relations fields.

“We have always strived to gain an unfair share of exceptional talent in our Clemenger Group companies by nurturing and hiring smart, passionate and creative people,” says Jim Moser, chief executuve of Clemenger Group.

For graduate Bethany Omeri, the programme has provided the perfect platform to begin a career in advertising.

“The programme really fosters your development. I was given the opportunity to get involved rather than just sitting back and passively observing. I felt like we were given a great deal of trust and responsibility which was the best way to learn. Clemenger Group wants you to be good at your job and they put everything in place to make sure that you can be.”

At the end of the six-month placement it is expected all ten graduates will be offered full-time positions within the Clemenger Group. And, as a result of the successful first edition, the Clemenger Group Graduate Programme will be run annually.

Lightning Bolton

Experienced art director Dave Bolton, who worked at Walkers for over ten years and co-founded agency Work, is the latest old hand to join the Pond’s freelance collective.

“I’ve worked in some good agencies around town over the years. I was creative director at Walkers for a long time. In 2003 I formed an agency called Work, recently sold that, went freelancing and now here I am writing about myself as an art director in a Pond… and loving it.”

Mango trio

Fresh from hiring three new fruits, Mango, DDB’s PR, experiential and events agency has added three more, with Katie Hogan joining as an account manager from Total Events, Sarah Batley joining as talent manager and Justine Kinsella joining as account executive – events.

Hogan has worked in both events and PR in New Zealand and the UK; Batley, who has a diploma in event management, was most recently at Vector Arena as an events assistant and previously at Carat New Zealand; and Kinsella was a booking agent for some of New Zealand’s top talents, a tour manager and media runner for the Big Day Out.

Ehh Me Julie

New Zealand Major Events (NZME) has welcomed Julie Davidson on board as an advisor. She will be working with the Major Events Development Fund, which provides government funding to help attract, deliver, and grow high quality events that deliver lasting benefits for New Zealand. NZME works in close partnership with the events sector and is based within the Ministry of Economic Development.

Davidson was the former managing director of Current Events Limited and brings strong business and industry experience to complement the current team.

 

 

 

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