Hamish McLennan joins News as EVP to Rupert Murdoch
One of Australia’s highest profile admen Hamish McLennan – who announced last year he was stepping down as global CEO of Y&R Advertising – has taken a senior role with News Limited’s parent company News Corporation.
McLennan has been appointed to the new role of executive vice president, Office of the Chairman.
The role will be split between Australia and New York, and McLennan will report to News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch and chief operating officer Chase Carey.
McLennan has been close to Murdoch for some time. Four years ago he interviewed Murdoch on stage at the Cannes Lions during which he praised his creation of Fox News and his “smart” management decisions over MySpace.
The announcement said: “In this newly created role, Mr. McLennan will be responsible for developing and enhancing News Corporation’s large-scale, global brand partnerships in order to maximize revenue derived from the Company’s deep portfolio of media assets. McLennan will collaborate closely with senior business leaders across News Corporation to strengthen the Company’s rich and sustainable marketing alliances, and better position its core assets – and their digital extensions– for today’s global marketplace.”
Murdoch said in the statement: “As we grow our international footprint we see a real opportunity to bolster the value of our brand partnerships and I am convinced that Hamish’s considerable industry experience, coupled with a unique and wide-ranging strategic vision, make him the right executive to deliver the insights we need to maximize our global media investments.”
McLennan said: “I am pleased to be joining such an innovative media company and am grateful to Rupert and Chase for their confidence and support. We have a unique opportunity to more aggressively position News Corporation’s peerless content businesses and further develop existing – and untapped – global brand relationships.”
From 2002 to 2006, McLennan was Chairman and CEO of Y&R Australia/New Zealand, including leading the acquisition of his former agency George Patterson Bates to form George Patterson Y&R.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Is this a step up or a step down?
Seriously, I’m asking the question.
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Everything Hamish does is calculated. He hasn’t yet made a wrong move in his career. He would not be moving unless it was a huge opportunity. Watch this space.
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The old GPYR triumvirate goes over to the media owners:
Mike at Ten; Hamish at News… Matt at a radio network… tbc
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Agree with anon.
This is just the beginning.
A BIG move for The Hammer.
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Hope he has a hard hat and a law degree.
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Wasn’t this Jeremy Phillips old job at News (Office of the Chairman) before he came back to the basket-case that is Photon? And can anybody really ‘advise’ Rupert? Interesting move.
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Go Hamo
He must have got a feeling for it delivering the papers at 252 George Street. Another Patts despatch boy alumni!
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yes chris this was exactly Jeremy Phillps’ job before he came back to fix Photon. I would have thought that being one of Rupert’s handmaidens is a clear step down for someone of McClennan’s experience but then again he IS Rupert Murdoch and as they say McClennan is nobody’s fool
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So Hamish praised Rupert’s smart management decision about Myspace????
What smart decision – he lost a motza on it…
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I hope there’s lots of people as Hamish is very much a people person. Why when he was at GPYR he must have spoken to literaly almost everyone.
No-one who worked for Hamish will ever forget the way his wit and friendliness bubbled through the office and made every day better.
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