Host reshuffles management line-up – Olly Taylor to chief strategy officer; Suzie Shaw to MD role
A week after Havas took a 51% stake in Sydney agency Host, a new management team line-up has been announced which welcomes some new additions along with several long-term team members taking on new roles.
Partner and executive planning director Olly Taylor, who has been with Host since 2003 will assume the role of chief strategy officer, with overall responsibility for both the strategic and creative output of the agency.
He will relinquish day-to-day supervision of Host’s highly regarded, ten-strong planning team to Frank Bethel who will take on the role of executive planning director. Frank has been at Host since 2006, most recently as brand planning director.
Suzie Shaw, who joined Host in January as head of account management, will become the agency’s first managing director. Prior to returning to Sydney, Shaw spent more than a decade in London working in senior management roles at TBWA and WCRS.
Shaw will be replaced by Karen Martin as head of account management who joins after seven years at BMF. Karen was most recently the group account director on Lion Nathan, Meat and Livestock Australia, Bing and WeightWatchers.
Richard Birkby who joined Host in 2008 to head up Bankwest, will swap his client service director duties for a head of direct and retail role, charged with ensuring the agency continues to develop its capability and expertise in these key growth areas.
Experiential director, Jodie Couzens who joined Host in 2004 to set up and lead Host’s event production team will take on additional responsibilities as director of people and culture.
Paddy Morahan who joined in 2008 will continue as director of operations but will assume a wider role across all aspects of the agency’s operations.
Finance director, David Munro and CEO, Anthony Freedman will continue in their current roles.
General manager, Jacqui Hooper who has been with the agency since 2001, has decided that the time is now right for her to spend more time with her growing family and so will not return to the agency following her current period of maternity leave.
Says Freedman:, “Last week we announced the exciting partnership with Havas and our intention to explore opportunities to continue the development of our agencies. Clearly a decision as significant as that gives cause for some reflection on all aspects of
the current business and it was very apparent that we had many people with a lot more to offer Host than was being utlised in their current roles.”
Adds Taylor: “It is fantastic to have a depth of team that allows us to see so many people step up to take on more of the day to day management of the agency. An agency is a constantly evolving entity and the opportunity to inject some new enthusiasm and experience into the management line up is essential to keeping us at the top of our game.”
Says Shaw: “This is a great agency full of really talented people, determined to create ambitious ideas. I feel really privileged to be helping to shape the second generation of Host.”
6 Comments
Love Your Work Frank!
From the people who brought you the agency without creatives, well yes, they’ve had creatives, just everyone else’s really, it’s all downhill from here.
Havas just bought 51% of a planning department with a concept, and that’s allot of cash for an asset that depends upon it’s ability to poach from the infrastructure of others to come up with the ideas to match their briefs, alias smoke and mirrors.
When you need an extraordinarily creative idea to take your brand to the next level, Host knows whom to call, and while they don’t write your ads, or art direct them, nor certainly produce and direct the content or buy the media or design the digital interactive, they’ll manage your expectations as a client and control the process just as if they were a full service creative agency, and bill you accordingly for the experience. Think Mother in London, only in reverse.
No CDs in the photo op, in fact no creatives at all really, unless you count planners and strategists as creatives, which they do. Executive Planning Director, Chief Strategy Officer, Head of Account Management, Client Services Director, Finance Director, and Experiential Director, whatever that is. Do you want your experience directed? Hey, why aren’t all these people wearing suits, anyway?
Mother in London, creatives without suits. Host in Sydney, suits without creatives, and don’t let the dress code fool you.
You can’t argue with the ferns in the foyer though. Top shelf, what?
i tell you what is really disturbing, is that Glue, who made Host’s “creative reputation” have no equity, therefore no payday for what they have created
Host will tell you that the Glues were only ‘strategic partners’, so of course no equity in their business.
This concept of outsourcing creative has grown to the extent that ownership is just a structural shell with strategy and what ifs, one which can be emptied and filled by those who do the creative work, which in the end gives ownership its value. Great concept, less overhead, exploit the development and support of creative talent by others, take the credit for the work that you commission, and the lion’s share of the profit for managing the client. Everything is off the shelf and your business is virtual until the next funded project gives you the resources to make it actual. Of course there’s the pitch process to secure clients, which is fostered by those who’ll compete for the chance to join in on the work that’s not yet been awarded, so no overhead for the agency there either.
In biology the host is the organism that harbours a symbiont or a parasite. In some corners of the ad business, it’s the other way around.
The Host phenomenon shouldn’t come as a surprise really, as the vast majority of client service and account managers see themselves as creatives, and all they need is your portfolio to prove it.
Hairy Houdini – How much cash? It hasn’t been released.
11.53 – you are mistaken. They set Host up with Anthony. They have a big, big share, don’t you worry.