GroupM has promoted Venessa Hunt and Liesa Newland as it seeks to strengthen its investment team.
Hunt has moved into a digital strategy and investment officer role alongside Newland, who is now head of trading intelligence. Both will report to GroupM CIO Nicola Lewis.
Joining GroupM in 2015, Hunt is now tasked with leading the group's digital direction and was promoted from her role as head of digital investment and partnerships.
Newland has been at GroupM for 15 years, most recently as intelligence and data director.
“I am thrilled to recognise two team members of the calibre of Venessa and Liesa and strengthen our competitive advantage in investment strategy," Lewis says.
"We have the best talent in market within GroupM and being able to reward our people with promotions and new challenges that match their passions and expertise means we continue to inspire excellence in everything we do, and deliver the best outcomes to our clients."
The move comes as GroupM overhauls its internal positioning and reshuffles its executive team with Nic Turley shifting to the group's addressable TV arm which launched in October.
Liesa Newland
Hunt says there has never been a better time to look at bigger, strategic possibilities for GroupM.
“I am looking forward to this opportunity to elevate the game. As most mediums become digitised, we begin to see the rise of a converged media landscape and the speed of change is ever continuing," Hunt says.
"My focus will be to foster a centre of excellence for digital strategy within GroupM to support our teams and agencies with expert digital knowledge as they help our clients navigate this changing landscape.”
Hunt and Newland sit on the GroupM Leadership Team, working alongside Fahad Bashir, head of compliance and pricing, who joined in June from GroupM Indonesia where he was chief investment officer.
Finecast managing director Brett Poole and Xaxis managing director Imran Masood have also joined the GroupM Leadership team.
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