Haystac founders launch new agency to be led by former Mango MD Elly Hewitt
Former Mango Communications managing director Elly Hewitt has been installed as the MD of Alt/Shift, a new creative communications agency launched by Haystac founders, Anton Staindl and Richard Hayward.
The Melbourne outfit will specialise in PR, social and experiential marketing.
Hewitt’s appointment comes eight months after she stepped down from Mango to focus on family life. It sees her reunited with Staindl and Hayward with whom she worked at Haystac as account director between 2006 and 2009.
Staindl said: “We’re thrilled Elly is joining us on this adventure. Rich and I worked with Elly early in our Haystac days, and she always struck us as a natural leader and someone destined to do great things. We’re excited to be getting the band back together and building a great agency from the ground up.”
While the landscape has changed in the past 15 years since Haystac launched “the essence of what makes a great agency hasn’t”, he said.
“The starting point will always be understanding the commercial needs of our client – not just creating ‘noise’ for the sake of it,” he said. “The agencies doing the best work seem to be creatively driven, nimble, and able to execute across a range of traditional and social platforms. That’s the space we’ll operate in.”
Staindl added that the agency would “not chase growth for growth’s sake” but said it expected to “add quite a bit of depth to our team relatively quickly”.
Hewitt added: “I’m a strong believer that an agency is only as good as its people and I’m looking forward to growing our team and attracting the best talent in the creative communications industry.
“We have all the benefits of a boutique agency, coupled with ‘big agency’ experience.”
Former Cotton On Group PR strategist, Samantha Vassos, has also joined Alt/Shift, as general manager.
Well done guys – great work!
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Great team you’re building there, and from visiting you also great spirit and cool premises. Good luck, though I’m sure you won’t need it.
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