IAG’s Michelle Klein takes on Westpac chief marketing gig
IAG’s chief customer and marketing executive Michelle Klein has been nabbed by Westpac to take on the newly repositioned role of chief growth and marketing officer.
She fills the vacant role left by Annabel Fribence, who departed in January amid an overhaul from new CEO Anthony Miller.
Klein has been with IAG for just over two years, after a decade spent in the US working for Meta. Her career extends over 25 years and five continents, including roles at Diageo, British Airways, Orient Express, and Armani.
An IAG spokesperson told Mumbrella: “Michelle leaves a very strong CXM leadership and broader team and we wish her the very best in the future.”
Michelle Klein
Fribence — who was Westpac’s chief brand and marketing officer — has since taken on the CMO role at Macca’s. Former Westpac marketer Elaine Herlihy had stepped back into the business as a strategic advisor and interim CMO while the search for a permanent marketer was underway.
Acting chief executive of Westpac’s consumer division, Carolyn McCann, confirmed Klein’s appointment in a statement to Mumbrella.
“Michelle is a customer-centric, commercial and data-driven leader, with global experience across a range of industries. She is the right person to take our growth and marketing agenda forward into the future, building on our proud 208-year history,” she said.
“We’re looking forward to Michelle joining Westpac later this year where she will be responsible for supporting our growth ambitions through our brand and marketing initiatives, including for Westpac, St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA.”
The bank repositioned the job description and title to include ‘growth’ specifically because of the ambition across its portfolio. As part of the changes made by Miller at the start of the year, new reporting lines were formed, and as Mumbrella understands, branding has instead fallen under the remit of McCann. She was previously customer and corporate affairs executive, before taking on the interim chief role.
It comes following the set up of a new paid media team, with a newly-appointed head to be announced in due course. The new team was created after Westpac made up to 30 redundancies within its in-house media division last month, as revealed by Mumbrella.
“The changes we’ve made will help us deliver the bank’s strategy with dedicated marketing teams established to support our consumer, business and institutional divisions, as well our technology and business simplification program UNITE,” a spokesperson told Mumbrella at the time.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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topics
Annabel Fribence
appointment
Carolyn McCann
growth
IAG
Marketing
Michelle Klein
Westpac
Westpac Group
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