Amanda Watts promoted to GM of OMD Sydney
Head of Tesltra at OMD, Amanda Watts has been promoted to general manager of the agency’s Sydney office, in a newly created role effective 1 November.
The agency said the move is consistent with OMD’s policy of senior executive impact across all clients, its commitment to a sustainable leadership structure continuing to provide “the right level of coverage and leadership for its clients and people”, and is a function of growth of the agency’s largest Australian office.
Joint Sydney managing director, Kim Hamilton, said: “Adding a general manager to OMD Sydney’s bench strength enables the breadth of leadership required to ensure all clients continue to be serviced to the highest standards, by having executive leadership working within their businesses, not just across them. The new role is testament to the phenomenal success and growth that we have experienced recently, and Amanda is absolutely the right person for the job.”
Amanda Watts
Watts has spent the best part of her career at OMD, with the last four at OMD Australia, previously working in the Singapore office for 15 years total over two stints, separated by two years at Universal McCann. She began her career at Mitchell Media.
She has extensive cross-category experience, recently heading OMD’s Tesltra account, but also across banking, consumer electronics, alcoholic beverages, beauty and skincare.
Watts said: “I’m so thrilled to join the executive team to help drive the future growth of OMD Sydney. It’s such an exciting time to be in the media industry, as we navigate ourselves and clients through a changing landscape of evolving issues across areas such as data privacy, legislative changes and sustainability. In addition, we’re in a world which has accelerated trends in remote working, e-commerce and automation. I look forward to bringing my passion for people and culture to this role, helping steer the team to achieve future success.”
Fellow joint Sydney managing director, Laura Nice, said: “Amanda’s passion for people, leadership style and experience in building teams that deliver to clients’ needs will be something that will drive OMD Sydney to even greater heights. Amanda’s depth of experience is already proving to be of value to the wider National Executive team of which she is the newest member.”
The appointment also bolsters OMD’s senior female leadership team, led by Nice and Hamilton, who Watts will report into. With the outstanding appointment of Aimee Buchanan’s replacement as OMD Australia CEO, chief exectuive of Omnicom Media Group, Peter Horgan told Mumbrella that he would “love to replace a high profile female with another high profile female”, however not closing the door on other options.
Watts will remain the principal on Telstra until her successor is appointed, and will then more to executive lead on the account. Other OMD accounts include Suncorp, McDonald’s, Tabcorp, NSW Government, Qantas, Estee Lauder Companies and Apple, as well as new wins of Canva, the Victorian Government and Greencross Ltd (Petbarn parent company) this year.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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