Former Virgin Australia chief customer officer Mark Hassell is joining KPMG Australia as a partner, heading up the firm’s newly established customer, brand and marketing advisory business.
Hassell was chief customer officer at Virgin Australia for five years, having previously worked at British Airways and Qantas. He began his career as a flight attendant, working his way up the ranks.
The appointment of Hassell to KPMG’s customer, brand and marketing practice brings the combined team total to 59 nationally, including eight partners.
KPMG announced its foray into marketing in June this year, promoting Paul Howes to lead the new business unit. Since then, it has made a slate of high profile hires, including Google Australia's mobile and new business leader Lisa Bora and ex M&C Saatchi innovation specialist Nathan Baird.
As one of the big four auditors, KPMG's moves echo its rival PwC in this market. In March this year PwC revealed it would create a CMO Advisory board with members including PwC's chief creative officer Russel Howcroft, PwC CMO Matt McGrath, chief commercial and strategy officer at Network Ten Sunita Gloster (who was then CEO of AANA), former Foxtel MD of customer and retail Mark Buckman, ex Facebook MD Stephen Scheeler and more.
“For decades, the aviation industry has been the gold standard in innovating and transforming the customer experience. Mark brings not just this understanding, but also years of experience at the coalface in all aspects of brand transformation, including crucially, how to implement and embed it to deliver on business objectives,” says Paul Howes, partner in charge of the Customer, Brand and Marketing Advisory.
“It’s becoming increasingly fashionable for leaders to say that the customer is at the heart of their business, but for too many Australian organisations this clearly isn’t true. As one of the key investment areas of the firm, KPMG is ambitious to grow our Customer practice and respond to the demand we know exists today in Australia for customer advisory services."
KPMG Australia’s expansion into the marketing sector is part of a wider movement from consultancies who are looking to scoop dollars once dominated by the ad industry.
KPMG has gone a different route to some of its rivals, luring marketing talent instead of snapping up creative skills. This year Accenture, PwC and RXP have all acquired creative agencies, and last week Deloitte ransacked McCann taking its top talent.
Read how the latest consultancy moves are impacting the ad industry here.
“For a company to successfully claim a customer-centric culture, it must be driven from the top of an organisation and the customer has to have an effective voice at the top of the table,” Hassell says.
“To engage and galvanise a whole organisation behind a compelling customer and brand vision that meets or exceeds customer needs is key to transforming business performance. Everyone in a company, whatever their role, has a customer. A company that recognises and fully activates this will truly have the customer at its heart.”
Hassell starts his role today (3 October 2017).
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