Former Weber Shandwick exec Ian Rumsby launches communications consultancy Aeio
Former Weber Shandwick chairman and CSO, Ian Rumsby, has launched communications and social innovation consultancy Aeio, alongside partners Drew Klonsky and Jye Smith.
Aeio will help clients simplify the connections between corporate communications, culture transformation and social innovation.
Klonsky, Rumsby and Smith
Rumsby explained: “We built Aeio to help organisations uncomplicate the complex; navigate the shift in market need and expectation; and – as we like to say – do good, make better.
“It’s a direct response to the growing need for brands to better connect communications, culture and commerce.”
Rumsby and Smith are connected through their backgrounds at Weber Shandwick. Smith is the former APAC head of digital for the agency, having left the business in 2016. Rumsby announced his departure last July after 19 years with Weber Shandwick.
Klonsky was formerly the head of strategy and business transformation at R/GA Australia. He has client side experience with Nike and has worked in a number of innovation and design firms in the US, including his own, Citizen, which he sold to EY.
Klonsky said: “We have set about establishing a consultancy that puts our shared belief in a more cohesive future at the centre of our own decision making. That means working with partners and clients to rethink brand purpose and narrative, and to then actualise that proposition across the entire organisation.
“Purpose and profit cannot be two different work streams. They have to be fundamentally aligned.”
Aeio will be based in Sydney and service clients across Australia and Southeast Asia.
Aeio will compliment the design services offered by Doublestar, Smith’s design studio which he launched last year with Baptiste David, but operate as a separate business. Smith will continue to be involved with the studio.
