SCA has appointed Seb Rennie to the new role of executive head of LiSTNR Commercial.
Rennie comes to SCA from GroupM, where he has spent the past eight years, most recently as chief investment officer for Australia and New Zealand.
Rennie has 20 plus years’ experience in the media industry, having worked with Mediacom in the UK and Australia, OMD as group trading manager and MEC as chief investment officer prior to moving to Group M in 2015.
LiSTNR houses more than 500 podcast titles, 154 Hit and Triple M radio and DAB+ stations, 29 music stations, and news and information. The number of plays per month on LiSTNR increased by almost 300% in 2022.
SCA CEO Grant Blackley, said: “Seb is a proven leader with unrivalled media negotiation and investment strategy skills, a strong managerial background, and a proven track record in the creation and implementation of plans to deliver on business needs.
"We are thrilled to have an executive of his calibre and experience join us and I look forward to seeing LiSTNR’s commercial strategy continue to gain further momentum – delivering a leading digital audio service and accompanying growth rate."
Rennie said: “The opportunity to lead LiSTNR’s commercial strategy was too good to pass up. I have watched LiSTNR’s growth, innovation, and commercial success with keen interest; it’s a unique offering in the Australian market with enormous untapped potential for advertisers.
"The digital audio sector is primed for strong growth this year and beyond, and LiSTNR’s addressable audience of more than one million people is a sustainable and highly saleable commercial proposition. It’s a very exciting time to be joining SCA and I look forward to working with the team to deliver compelling commercial outcomes for both advertisers and LiSTNR.”
Aimee Buchanan, GroupM Australia & New Zealand CEO, said: “Seb is a fantastic operator and has played a phenomenal part in shaping GroupM and our agencies in his 18 years with the group.
"He has worked alongside our agency teams to drive our world leading Media Decarbonisation Framework and to implement our Responsible Investment Framework which puts Brand Safety, Data Ethics, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Responsible Journalism, Sustainability and Transparency at the heart of our investment strategy and he leaves a strong, experienced and stable team in place in the group and our agencies. I’ve enormously enjoyed working alongside him.
"We thank him for all his contributions and we all wish him the best as he takes on this new challenge. We’re underway with the search for his replacement.”
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