Ride-sharing service Ola has appointed Andrew Balint as its chief marketing officer for Australia and New Zealand.
The appointment follows last year's shake-up to its local marketing team and agency partnerships, which saw then marketing director Natasha Daly exit and Clemenger Sydney and Wavemaker hired as its new agencies.
Prior to the changes, Starcom and The Royals had been handling the media and creative accounts respectively, however only on a non-retained project basis.
According to Ola, Balint, who joins from property investment disrupter BrickX, has been hired to support the businesses growth across its 10 metropolitan locations in the region.
“It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity to join Ola. Digital is in my DNA and I plan to bring this passion to the company, along with my expertise in transformational marketing, to drive entrepreneurial thinking and embed the customer at the heart of every part of the business," Balint says.
During his 20 years in the industry, Balint has held marketing and commercial roles with Qantas, eBay, News Corp, Optus and Amaysim, where he took the business from start-up to number four in market in just four years.
Balint specialises in digital marketing and has extensive experience in both customer experience and product, which he will utilise to continue driving Ola’s successes locally.
Ola now also operates in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide and Canberra, and launched in New Zealand late last year, across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
“Securing Balint's appointment is a great win for Ola’s Australian and New Zealand business and a key element of building a stellar local leadership team," Ola ANZ managing director Simon Smith says.
"Having worked with Balint in the past I know he’s capable of big things, and I am confident that he has the energy, experience, strategic thinking and customer-centric approach that will be critical in continuing to grow Ola across the two markets.”
Balint joins a raft of new appointments across marketing, communications, legal and policy, HR, product and partnerships, as the company pushes the expansion of its local team.
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