After over three years with the agency McCann Sydney managing director Adam Lee departs
McCann Sydney has confirmed that after over three years with the agency, managing director Adam Lee will leave the agency in a mutual agreement.
Lee joined McCann Sydney in April 2015 from Whybin\TBWA where he was group head.
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 Nicole Taylor, CEO, McCann Worldgroup Australia: “I joined McCann Australia in July with a mandate to make the agency as revered as our New York counterpart. Key to that is shaping a team of truly world class talent.
“We have amazing people at McCann that I really believe in but we also need an injection of new and different talent to reach our dream of creating Australia’s most exciting creative agency. It requires me to make tough calls but I will do so with compassion and humanity.
“Last week we announced internally that our Sydney Managing Director Adam Lee, will be leaving the agency by mutual agreement.
“Adam made a significant contribution to McCann Sydney and built strong relationships during his three years. It’s obvious that he loves the business so I’m sure that he will continue to have a great career and we genuinely wish him well.
“We are hugely passionate about creating a team of the most talented, diverse and courageous people who don’t settle for the 7 out of 10 as our clients need ambitious, impactful ideas more than ever.”
26 Comments
who worked on share a coke?
You could have shown some compassion by not mentioning he was fired… ‘by mutual agreement’.
The contempt is so thinly veiled, Durex are developing a patent!
Totally agree. This sort of release shows a significant lack of sensitivity and form. There is no benefit to anyone, other than ego, in communicating in this way.
Best of luck Adam.
You deserve better.
so you don’t notice all the other scalps.
Those comments about 7 out of 10 creative are pretty disrespectful, especially given all the good creative people and long-term freelancers who were let go.
The work on Mastercard NZ was top class. Judging by this release you definitely deserve better.
What an absolutely heartless press release. I don’t know you Adam, but best of luck for the future. You’ve dodged a bullet. Rising above 7 out of 10 often requires the CEO to get up off their arse and push an idea over the line with the clients, not sitting there slagging off the creatives.
And you certainly don’t derserve to be treated like this. You are a gentleman with style and class. Consider it a blessing to get away from the mean girls. You’re way too good for them. All the very best to you.
I hope the announcement of the equivalent in Melbourne (yes, it’s happened) is handled with much more respect….
McCann in Australia is a joke and should just give up.
Don’t forget the great work Adam led, the growth he drove and the talent he attracted. Shameless way to bid farewell to someone regardless of personal opinions. Best of luck to the McCann team left behind & congrats to Adam for escaping such an environment.
I think the point is they aren’t. Highly intelligent post, great contribution.
So they want to make McCann Australia as ‘revered as our New York counterpart’!
Since when did McCann acquire Droga5???
My second comment – if McCann wants more than a 7 out 10…then perhaps it’s time to replace others.
This kind of release lacks class — and makes me never want to work with McCann either.
Letting people leave with dignity and not calling them a “seven out of ten” would have reflected far better on the culture you want to build.
Yes, tell it like it actually is. A large number of redundancies due to three years of ego-driven leadership and significant client losses across Sydney and Melbourne across multiple departments. Adam was part of that I’m sure. This release makes the situation look otherwise. He deserves better as did all of the affected.
McCann is a basketcase. It was a pretty ordinary agency before the merger with SMART, as genius a move as that was. Then struck gold with Dumb Ways to Die and everyone went award crazy (and other kinds of crazy) and it just never ever got their game right. Ever. The culture at McCann has always been toxic and the leadership in Asia hasn’t helped one bit with their ridiculous expectations, permeating the leadership in Australia with selfishness and fear. There is some great creative talent still in there and many more have come and gone very quickly over the years. But until McCann eradicates the toxic culture from within and replaces it with a positive, creative, encouraging and nurturing environment that attracts and retains great talent, the sad and sorry saga of arrivals and exits will continue. Changing people is easy. Changing culture is hard but that’s where the real gold is.
amen brother
Was the creative product at DDB ever more than a seven out of ten?
AHHHH McCann you’ve done it again.
What a terrible press-release.
I give this press release 2 out of 10.
An observation for my female counterparts.
You don’t need to be hard or behave aggressively to be respected.
That behaviour does not serve men well either.
Remember to be nice to all the people you meet on the way up…you meet them again on the way down.
Now, back to my Tony Robbins podcast.
I don’t know these people but I know agencies and there’s something depressing about this: the flag-waving about creativity standards, so crucial that heads need to roll, but you just know the minute a client doesn’t want 10/10 creativity McCann (or any agency really) will likely cave rather than lose said client.
I’ve worked in the top Aussie agencies I have met very very few clients who truely want 10/10 creative once they meet it face to face. Hardly any clients even say they want it in the first place, or else their idea of it is far from an agency’s view.
As I said I have never worked with Adam but if he was hitting 7/10 no doubt he was probabaly bending when necessary to maintain a client relationship. (You can’t do good work for a client you don’t even have.) Then he get’s thrown under the bus when someone fresh comes in and everyone has forgotten the drama when they were going to loose a client because those nutty creatives wanted to do that idea the client hates or else the existing relationship was so on edge they couldn’t push too hard.
…I’m just guessing all this but tell me if I’m wrong.
It’s great to be brave but equally big agencies can’t just do whatever they want and loose big clients willy nilly, not without saying goodbye a lot of loyal staff.
I have had the pleasure of working with Adam and he is a true gentleman and champion of great work. Best of luck, not that you will need it.
Hey mate f&*k off.
This isn’t a gender thing and how dare you make it one? I noticed some a-hole up tops made some ‘mean girls’ comment too.
Donald Trump wants his ideology back. There are no such thing as nasty women and strong men. This industries men need to learn the difference.
Now back to the press release at hand.
Poorly handled press release. These things are never nice, but this particular instance could have been handled with a lot more class and tact. The 7 of 10 commentary was absolutely unnecessary. I sincerely hope it doesn’t really reflect the leadership style of the new McCann guard. If it does, run for the hills.
These type of press releases rarely have anything to do with the person departing and this one is no different – they only serve the agenda of the new management. Adam is and will always be a top notch professional and leader, it’s a shame the new leaders didn’t take the time to find this out. In this case, the grass is greener Ads.
Sorry to these comments – Adam and Nic are both good people and both deserve better.