The Works hires strategy director + strengthens agency’s digital team with new appointments

Following a string of new business wins including Energy Australia, Viator.com and Jim Beam global duties, The Works has made a number of hires in strategy and digital.

Strategy director Cate Mathers joins The Works after working at both media and creative agencies in Sydney and New York. Gertjan Leppers has been appointed digital executive producer from M&C Saatchi and Andrew Cornale becomes a digital producer. Rounding out the new hires is social community manager Siona Singletary.

Mathers was previously national head of social media at OMD and also worked as a creative strategist at Jack Morton Worldwide. She was a senior partner at New York based boutique creative and branding agency Safari Sundays and creative strategist at The Kaplan Thaler Group also in New York. She has done stints at Leo Burnett, ZenithOptimedia and News Corporation and worked on brands including McDonald’s, Qantas, Pepsi, St George and Frucor. Outside of advertising Mathers also invented and co-founded CocoCut, a device for opening coconuts easily and safely that is now sold around the world.

Executive producer Leppers has an extensive background in digital project management and operations both in Australia and his native Netherlands working on brands including Optus, Philips, KLM and Mini. He joins The Works from M&C Saatchi/Make where he was executive producer. He has also worked at AKQA, Tribal DDB Amsterdam and Lowe/Draftfcb.

Cornale has spent the past four years working freelance for agencies including The Conscience Organisation and Starcom on brands such as Pure Blonde, Nestle and Virgin Mobile.

Social community manager and strategist Singletary has a background in content creation and was most recently features writer on iPad business magazine Aspire. She replaces Courtney Beck who has been promoted to digital and creative social strategist.

The appointments follow The Works being awarded just one of three Global Effies for its Jim Beam Devil’s Cut launch. The same campaign also picked up an Australian Effie.

Says Damian Pincus, co-founder and creative partner at The Works: “It’s been another great year for us with new business wins and award recognition. Cate is a great addition to the team and brings substantial strategic experience on major brands to the agency. Gert, Andrew and Siona also add digital and social smarts and compliment our existing digital team. We’re delighted to welcome them all to The Works’ growing family.”

(Pictured L – R: Andrew Cornale, Gertjan Leppers, Cate Mathers, Siona Singletary)