Wunderman UK’s Aussie expat CCO Matt Batten set to depart to pursue new opportunities

Wunderman UK’s Aussie expat group chief creative officer Matt Batten is departing the agency soon to pursue new opportunities.

Batten took up the UK role in December 2012, transferring from the national executive creative director gig at Wunderman Australia.

Batten joined Wunderman Sydney as CD in January 2009, soon promoted to national executive creative director. Battenwas previously a member of award-winning DM teams at BMF and Saatchi& Saatchi. He was also a past chairman of the ADMA Agency Council and a keyplayer in the DM Creative School.

Batten served as a Cannes Lions Direct juror in 2011 and was named Digital Creative of the Year in 2010 by Campaign magazine Asia. He was the driving force behind impressive campaigns on behalf of Earth Hour and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8. Before joining Wunderman, Batten served as group creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi. Prior to that, he was at BMF in Sydney for five years. For eight years, he served as head lecturer at the DM Creative School in Sydney.

After relocating to London to help align the network’s UK operations – Wunderman (consumer engagement advertising), Blast Radius (digital), Burrows (CG production) and KBMG (data and insights) – into a more holistic offering of integrated marketing, Batten sourced fresh creative talent from the UK, Sweden, Norway, France, USA, New Zealand and Australia, and led the creative team to double in size, win major new accounts, and produce internationally-awarded campaigns.

According to Batten’s LinkedIn profile the agency has increased revenue +95% YOY and is now beating targets for the first time in 5 years. Econsultancy now ranks Wunderman UK as 7th in the top 100 agencies in London, Campaign magazine’s School Report scored the agency 8 out of 9, and Wunderman UK was Runner-up for Consumer Engagement Agency of the Year 2014.

The LinkedIn profile continues: I am also the Regional Creative Lead for all Wunderman offices across Western Europe, Nordics and Africa, helping build a network-wide culture of award-winning ideas, connect the 21 offices in the region utilising some of the global initiatives I helped develop from my previous role in Australia, and drive Wunderman’s presence at the Cannes Lions festival each year.