Varouhas to planning director at Whybin\TBWA

Whybin TBWA\ Tequila Sydney has snared Hristos Varouhas as its new strategic planning director – effective August – just six months after moving to The Campaign Palace as national planning director.

At The Palace Varouhas worked across clients such as Westpac, Target, Dominoes, Bonds and Panasonic. Before the Palace, Hristos was planning director at Belgiovane Williams Mackay, where he spent 4 years working across Telstra, GIO, Virgin Money and Sanitarium. At BWM, Hristos won the APG Grand Prix and the Gold Asia Pacific EFFIE for his work on Telstra Big Pond ‘Rabbits’. Before BWM, Hristos also did stints at DDB Sydney and London.

Says Whybin\TBWA managing director Paul Bradbury: “Our brief was tofind a Planning head with a strong track record of campaigneffectiveness, who is passionate about big game changing creativeideas, and who can drive fresh thinking across our business byunleashing the power of Disruption TM. We met lots of very wellcredentialed planners, but Hristos had the ‘X’ factor we really wanted.”

Says Varouhas: “Considering how things are evolving in the businesswe’re in, the TBWA brand, its ethos of positive Disruption and thesymbiotic relationship it has with Tequila means it is in a uniqueposition to lead our industry forward. Add to this their clients’desire to do great work that works and it’s fair to say the opportunityis a fantastic one indeed. Whilst my time at TCP has been short theexperience was an enjoyable one – I wish the agency and its clients allthe very best moving forward.”

Varouhas joins a management team at the agency that includes GarryHorner, Adrian Paul, Des Speakman, Paul Bradbury and Charles Clapshawwho is joining the agency as the new MD of Tequila Digital from TheFurnace in early July.