Zenith Australia reinvents its strategic offering

As Zenith Australia continues to reimagine itself following the leadership changes implemented earlier this year, including the arrival of Matt James as CEO, now Publicis Media CEO, the final structure of eight senior strategic roles has been announced.

The new strategic structure transforms the agency’s national strategic offering and now consists of four disciplines: insights, strategy, innovation, and communications planning. The goal of each discipline is to deliver best-in-class marketing and communications solutions for clients. 

Claire Taverner, previously from Lion Nathan, will lead the Insights division as human sciences director, working with Lavanya Ashok, previously with Jigsaw, as research manager. Utlising robust tools, the Insights division’s focus is to unearth deep consumer understanding to expedite informed decisions from marketing strategy to investment.

The strategy team will be led by Sydney strategy director Mark Krebs, who joined the team from Nine Entertainment Co. Strategist Daisy Gun adds her skills to the strategy team, previously holding the partnerships manager position within Zenith’s Newscast services.

The strategy team is dedicated to fusing the science of data with the art of human insights and cultural trends to develop genuine and relevant consumer connections.

As the importance of innovation and disruption continues to escalate, Zenith has invested in two senior hires to drive creativity and innovation across its national client portfolio. Heading up the innovation offering is chief innovation officer Kate Evans, previously national client business director at Nine Entertainment Co. Rosie Plunton, previously business director at Bohemia, is innovation director. The two are committed to unlocking great ideas which are executed at scale.

And finally the fourth discipline, communications planning, is led by Jonny Cordony as national communications planning director. Responsible for the planning output and process within the agency, Cordony was previously group business director at Bohemia Group. He works alongside long-time Zenith talent Alison Holland who taken the role as communications planning director. Together they are responsible for leading the planning process, embedding tools and internal training to ensure crafted communication excellence to all clients.

Says Karen Halligan, managing director, Zenith Sydney: “The strength of these new hires will help us to drive our purpose of marketing-led growth for our clients, and we have already seen the impact of this team on the work we are producing.”

Says Nickie Scriven, managing director, Zenith Melbourne: “It is exciting times for Zenith and with such strong and dynamic national executive and local leadership teams we are perfectly poised to deliver on our brand promise of dependable ROI to our clients.”