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Group M New Zealand promotes Chris Riley to new CEO role

Group M New Zealand has promoted former chief operating officer and Wavemaker MD Chris Riley to the newly created CEO role.

In the role Riley will be leading the group’s strategy and working with the New Zealand leadership teams of Group M’s Wavemaker, MediaCom, Mindshare and Ikon.

Chris Riley has been promoted to a new Group M CEO role in New Zealand

Riley has 26 years of experience in the industry. Prior to joining Wavemaker in 2015 he was the chief operating officer of DDB New Zealand and managing director of OMD. Riley also spent almost five-and-a-half years with Omnicom Group.

As a New Zealand CEO, Riley will report to Group M Australia and New Zealand CEO Mark Lollback.

Lollback said in a statement: “New Zealand is an important market in the region and Chris is an outstanding media executive and leader. After handling the dual role looking after operations for Group M in New Zealand as well as running Wavemaker for the past two years, it is a natural transition to appoint him as CEO.

“Creating the CEO role, with Chris at the helm, allows Group M to build on existing success and accelerate growth in New Zealand, and focus on strengthening our relationships with clients and partners. Chris’s leadership in the CEO role will provide enhanced focus on the Group at the same time as consistency of leadership.”

Riley said of his new role: “I’m pretty fired up about the opportunity to lead an exceptional group of people across our four agency brands in NZ. The Group has been working hard on our strategy of pacesetting the industry with particular emphasis on technology and data, and it’s really paid off for our clients.

“The talent of the people in this organisation is incredible and it’s a privilege to be able to work with them every day to guide the next stage of the GroupM growth plan here in New Zealand,” Riley concluded.

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