Long-time IPG Mediabrands top boss Henry Tajer has finally resurfaced – at global e-commerce giant Amazon.
After a lengthy period of gardening leave, the Australian, who left his Mediabrands New York gig in May last year after two years in a global role, is now back working in the media sector Down Under.
Tajer is heading up Amazon Media Group (AMG), which is its advertising solutions division spanning display, search, mobile, video, programmatic, and out of home.
Before moving to the US Tajer was previously CEO of the Australian Mediabrands business and built the local operation into one of Mediabrands' most successful divisions. Since the move, he tapped a raft of top Australian talent for global roles with IPG.
Read about: Tajer's Aussie brain drain
AMG in Australia appears to be ramping up and is also looking to fill more roles such as campaign and creative associate manager and an account manager – who is “responsible for driving business success for our advertising customers on the Amazon ecosystem through consultative services including annual planning, media planning and reporting”.
Advertising helped deliver Amazon’s second consecutive high-profit quarter in the first quarter after years of unprofitable or low-profit quarters.
In a report in Digiday earlier this month it said Amazon is “quietly” streamlining its ad business so that advertisers will be able to buy campaigns from the same place, whether they sell their products directly to the site or directly to its shoppers as third-party sellers.
Media executives commented that Amazon is working on a consolidated platform that will fold all campaign reporting and advertising products from the Amazon Media Group, Amazon Marketing Services and Amazon Advertising Platform divisions into one place.
When Tajer first left Australia in 2015 Danny Bass took over his role. Bass had been tipped to take over from GroupM’s John Steedman, but he turned down the Australian CEO role at WPP's media buying giant in favour of CEO of IPG Mediabrands in Australia - taking the reins from Tajer.
More to come
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