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Phil Phelan is Sapient Nitro’s national strategy director

Phil PhelanTechnology-led creative agency SapientNitro has hired the former managing director of MediaCom Melbourne as national strategy director.

Phil Phelan, a popular strategist who spent three years running the WPP media agency’s Melbourne office, moves into the role vacated by Mike Morrison a little over a year ago when he moved for his short stint as Ten’s chief sales officer.

Phelan will oversee strategy for Sapient across its three offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Paul Bennett, the national MD of Sapient Nitro, said: “Phil is a senior practitioner with a great range of brand, digital and analytical experience and capabilities. I am delighted that he is joining us, and as a member of our leadership team, will strengthen the new Sapient Nitro proposition and our ability to drive thought leadership within the senior levels of our clients.”

Sapient Nitro has endured a difficult time in recent months, losing key client Stockland Residential in November last year, which led to the departure of a creative director in Melbourne and Sydney, a head of studio, senior producer and account director among other staff in a big round of redundancies.

The agency of around 110 staff has also lost Volvo and Continental, but picked up business from other clients from BT Financial Group. Its client list includes Dreamworld, Footlocker, RACQ, Sanofi Aventis and Tourism Queensland.

Before his appointment as MD of MediaCom Melbourne in 2009, Phelan spent three years as the media agency’s strategy director. He also ran his own strategy consultancy after a stint at Zenith Media, where he began his career.

Phelan said: “I didn’t hesitate to accept the offer to join SapientNitro and become one of their Idea Engineers. They are truly pioneering a new agency model, where breadth of experience such as mine is the norm.”

Phelan has been replaced at MediaCom by Peter Barrie.

Robin Hicks

Encore issue 5

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

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