Adland is full of big moves. Here are the hires, promotions and exits of the week.
News Corp chief commercial officer Sharb Farjami to leave
News Corp Australia’s chief commercial officer (CCO) Sharb Farjami has exited the publisher. He'd been in the CCO role for seven months, but prior to that had been News Corp Australia's director of national sales for more than two years. Farjami joined News from Mindshare, where he was chief operating officer. It is currently unclear what his next move is, with News saying he's leaving to 'purse a new career path'. Read more here.
COO Robin Parkes exits
News Corp and its lifestyle publishing arm NewsLifeMedia are set to merge as part of a restructure, AdNews understands, alongside a number of senior management changes on both sides. Chief operating officer for News Corp's magazine arm NewsLifeMedia (NLM), Robin Parkes, has left the business after less than a year in the role, AdNews can reveal. Read more here.
Two more fish out of the Initiative pond
IPG Mediabrands-owned media agency Initiative has seen two senior executives depart. Chief strategy officer David Fish has taken a role at GroupM and Steve Fisher has resigned as MD of Initiative Melbourne, for personal reasons. While unrelated, the exits follow on from Initiative CEO Lee Leggett's departure last month, as revelaed by AdNews. It's thought global CEO of Initiative and former UM CEO here in Australia, Mat Baxter, who is now New York based, is involved in the hunt for Leggett's response.
Saatchi boss resigns over sexism row
Kevin Roberts, the Saatchi & Saatchi chairman and head coach, has resigned just days after being embroiled in a row over sexist comments. A statement released by Publicis today (3 August) said: "The Supervisory Board and the Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe took note of Kevin Robert's decision to step down with effect from 1 September, prior to his retirement date due in May 2017." Read more here.
GPY&R Sydney promotes Sasha Firth following Andrew Dowling's exit
GPY&R Sydney has promoted executive director Sasha Firth to MD following the departure of Andrew Dowling. Firth has been with the business for several years across GPY&R and digital agency VML. She previously worked at Iris Worldwide, BMF and The Campaign Palace. Read more here.
Matthew McConaughey named creative director
Actor Matthew McConaughey has been named Wild Turkey's creative director. Ad Age outlined that McConaughey will "serve as the chief storyteller for Wild Turkey both behind the camera and in front of it, reintroducing the world to the legendary bourbon brand." The actor will direct and star in a global campaign slated to begin in September that will include TV, digital and print. This partnership marks the first time the actor will serve as a behind the camera creative director.
Criteo MD exits – again
After being in the role a little over a year, former Spotify sales director and long-time ex-Google industry head, David Raitt, has left his spot as Criteo MD in Australia and New Zealand. Digital advertising and performance marketing tech company Criteo hired Raitt in July last year. He replaced Jeremy Crooks, who featured in an AdNews Industry Profile in October, and did say that in five years' time he'd be “exhausted and hopefully retired”. This morning Criteo confirmed that Raitt “is no longer an employee of Criteo”, and added that Prasanth Sankaran is the acting commercial director for Criteo Australia and New Zealand.
Lions Festivals appoints MD
Lions Festivals has appointed Jose Papa as its new managing director. Papa's new role will be overseeing brands under the Lions Festival umbrella including the Cannes Lions, Lions Health, Lions Innovation, Lions Entertainment along with regional events Dubai Lynx and Spikes Asia. Papa is currently CEO of fashion trend forecasting service WGSN. He will begin his new role on 1 September relocating from New York to London.
MediaWorks names Michael Anderson as CEO
New Zealand broadcaster MediaWorks has hired current chairman of OzTam and Ooh!Media and non-executive director at Fairfax Media, Michael Anderson, as its new CEO. Anderson spent seven years as CEO of Austereo before its merger with Southern Corss and before that, group director of sales. Anderson will also be appointed to the MediaWorks board.
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