James Wright named APAC boss of Havas PR
James Wright, the head of the Australian operation of public relations firm Red Agency, has been named APAC managing director of the PR operations of parent company Havas.
In the two years since he joined Red Agency in April 2011, the Brit is credited with doubling the size of the agency, winning new clients including Accor, Origin Energy, Yahoo!7 and WWF.
He will continue to be based in Sydney.
Wright said in a statement: “The APAC region has a great appetite for technology, and this sits at the heart of many of our ideas. My vision for the region is to develop campaigns that are deliberately social; they don’t have to necessarily live in social media, but they are campaigns that people want to share, talk about and interact with.”
“As we are a new kid on the block, we don’t have the same old ideas — we have new ones and think differently about how we achieve them. And our award-winning campaigns speak for themselves,” he said.
Wright told Mumbrella there were no immediate plans to rebadge Red Agency as Havas PR locally.
Marian Salzman, CEO, Havas PR North America, and chairperson, Havas PR global steering committee, added: “We are excited for James to bring his winning leadership style and ambition to oversee our expansion in the APAC region.”
“He understands that in all our practices around the globe, Havas wants to break from conventional marketing thinking, break new ground and be unconventional—and James does all that on a daily basis,” she said.
A spokesman said that Wright’s brief will not include PR agency One Green Bean, which Havas acquired an interest in through its acquisition of Host last year.
