McCann Sydney recruits Whybin\TBWA’s Adam Lee for newly created role of managing director

On the back of two years of record annual growth for McCann Sydney, McCann Australia has announced the appointment of Adam Lee (left) to the newly created role of managing director of McCann Sydney.

Lee’s appointment follows an unprecedented run of new business wins for McCann Sydney over the past two years, including Lion Nathan Foods, Google, Sprite, Microsoft, Hollard, Defence Housing Australia and Solaris Paper. The move comes just one month after McCann also boosted its planning capability with senior appointments in both Melbourne and Sydney, and after the agency was named Australia’s top-ranked creative effectiveness agency in the global WARC 100.

Says Ash Farr, CEO, McCann Australia: “After two years of solid growth, it’s time for McCann Sydney to gain its own managing director. With Adam on board, backed by a first-rate management team and our growing multi-disciplinary services, we can get more serious about aggressive business growth as we continue to steer the agency towards our vision to be Australia’s best creative agency and a true partner for our clients.

“Adam joins our incredible A-Team to rival any Sydney agency, including MRM managing director Brent Clarke’s digital strength, Roshni Hegerman and Lachlan James’s strategic leadership, Dejan Rasic’s creative credentials, Bradley Moore’s media stewardship and Nicole Gardner and Alex Baker’s client leadership. This is a hands-on role that will see Adam become a key part of the client leadership team, working across our innovative multi-platform campaigns for clients including MasterCard, Cereal Partners Worldwide, Coca-Cola, Universities Australia and Sprite.”

Lee joins McCann after senior roles at some of the country’s leading agencies, including Whybin/TBWA, Ogilvy & Mather and George Patterson. Most recently he was group head at Whybin/TBWA, where he was responsible for driving key accounts, such as Tourism New Zealand’s local and global communications as well as the Tabcorp portfolio.

Prior to working at Whybin/TBWA, Lee spent 11 years at Ogilvy & Mather Sydney, mostly leading the Coca-Cola portfolio of brands. In 2012, he spearheaded Coca-Cola’s multi-award-winning “Share a Coke” campaign, which picked up Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions, as well as becoming an Australian-first recipient of the highly-prized Cannes Effectiveness Black Lion the following year. The “Share a Coke” campaign was instrumental in Coca-Cola being named Creative Marketer of the Year at the 2013 Cannes Festival and also ran in over 50 countries across the world due to its phenomenal success.

Says Farr: “Adam’s appointment is also about replicating the successful management structure we’ve established in Melbourne with Adrian Mills as MD of the Melbourne office. This enables me to support two extremely talented managing directors as McCann enters its next stage of growth.”

Says Lee: “It’s an exciting time to be joining McCann Sydney: the work is world-class, the strategy is solid, and the increased investment on digital, content and media capabilities puts the agency in a unique position to deliver the right solution to every challenge facing our clients.”

McCann Australia’s effectiveness success this year saw the agency being named Australia’s top-ranked creative effectiveness agency in the global WARC 100.