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Evolve Media Australian office embroiled in Fair Work claim

Content agency Evolve Media – owner of The Mum Collective and Feeds Media – is embroiled in a legal dispute with its former head of agency partnerships Angela Cann over a separation payments dispute.

The dispute arose when Cann was made redundant five months after the company’s restructure last February that saw it split into two separate arms focused on millennial brands and parenting.

CEO and founder of Evolve, Aaron Broder: “We are very pleased with the results of the restructure”

Cann has claimed $65,000 for unpaid redundancy, leave entitlements and commission payments after being made redundant in July last year.

In her statement submitted to the Federal Circuit Court in Sydney, Cann alleges she was made redundant while on sick leave after making a bullying complaint against Evolve’s Australian general manager, Joel King.

When Cann sought to be paid out the entitlements in her $150,000 a year contract, she alleges the company refused to do so. In her statement, she alleges CEO Aaron Broder warned her legal representatives that the US parent company was prepared to wind up the Australian arm should her claims be successful.

Cann’s statement of claim alleges:

“On or about 22 August , 2017, the Employer and/or Mr Broder, represented to the Employee (through her legal representative) that, inter alia, if the Employee pursued her redundancy and long service leave entitlements:

(a) they would commence proceedings against the Employee for engaging in fraudulent conduct in taking sick leave;

(b) Mr Broder would cause the Employer to enter into liquidation such that, no matter what actions the employee took to enforce her rights, she would be unable to recover any money from the Employer; and

(c) the Employee had no choice but to abandon her claims against the Employer.”

Subsequently, Cann alleges the company changed its reason for dismissing her from redundancy to ‘serious and wilful misconduct’.

Cann was originally employed by Evolve subsidiary Gorilla Nation as senior account manager when the company set up its Australian operations in 2010 and was promoted to head of agencies for the company’s Mum Collective arm in the restructure.

At the time Evolve Media’s sales director, Sally Wood was appointed head of The Mum Collective, however she left the company five months later and her duties were taken over by King.

Along with Evolve, Cann has also named King and US-based executives, CEO Aaron Broder and chief counsel Joshua Ellingwood, as parties in the case. They and the company are yet to file a defence to her claims.

Both Cann and King declined to comment on the case. When approached by Mumbrella to comment about the performance of the Australian business since the reorganisation, CEO Aaron Broder said: “We are very pleased with the results of the restructure.”

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