Baxter’s back: Huge global boss relocates to Australia
Leading global advertising industry executive Mat Baxter has returned to Australia where he will continue to run the global operations of Huge.
Baxter, one of the most outspoken industry leaders, has been at the IPG agency since January 2021, based in Brooklyn, New York.
Baxter
Responding to questions from Mumbrella, Huge’s local managing director Ben Skelsey said, “Mat’s moved his home base to Sydney for family reasons. As the global CEO – whilst he lives in Sydney – nothing changes, he is leading Huge globally and will be travelling to the USA, Europe and other parts of the world as needed, as would any global CEO.”
Skelsey added that for him, it was business as usual and that, while he may get more time in real life with Baxter, it won’t mean more time overall, just “a switch from phone calls to coffee.”
A year into his tenure as global CEO, Baxter closed all of the agency’s global offices aside from the Brooklyn HQ and moved to what he described to Mumbrella as a “fully flexible” model.
“There is no mandatory return to the office,” he said at the time. “You can not come back to the office at all if that’s what you want to do. We encourage that people do come into the office occasionally to create that connection and to keep that culture alive, but one of the things we’re doing is re-imagining the office altogether.”
Baxter and Huge’s interest in Australia was already high prior to this news. As recently as February this year the agency positioned Skelsey in market as local managing director, based in Melbourne.
Skelsey was previously the general manager of Huge’s Singapore office.
Skelsey
Baxter hasn’t based himself in Australia since his days leading the local UM office. In August 2015 he relocated to New York to take on the role of global chief strategy and creative officer at IPG Mediabrands before moving into the global CEO role at agency Initiative a year later.
He visited Australia in 2019 as one of the keynote speakers at Mumbrella360 calling for the industry to “ditch the pitch”.
At the time he said, “There is a concern in our industry, and I’m talking for both creative and media agencies here, that when you speak out publicly about what goes on in the pitch, well, there could be some form of retaliation from the client and the pitch consultant community.
“I really hope that isn’t the case today. I really hope that we can have this kind of discussion in a grown-up way and that that kind of concern about retaliation is unfounded. So fingers crossed, otherwise, I might be in some trouble.”
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