James Wright extends role to lead Havas Worldwide Melbourne office
Wright
The head of The Red Agency James Wright has taken responsibility for the whole Havas group in Melbourne after the former managing director John Perry departed to start his own venture.
Wright has been managing director of Havas’ PR arm the Red Agency since 2011, but the new role sees him take charge of the small Havas Worldwide creative office in Melbourne which services clients including Danone and Medibank and is set to defend the La Trobe University account which is out to tender.
The group has around 25 staff in the office split across creative, PR and employer marketing agency The Face.
Havas Worldwide Australia CEO Anthony Gregorio said Wright was a natural fit for the job, adding: “It was a deliberate move as James has been doing such a fantastic job with Red, and a lot of the business we have in Melbourne is PR clients, and a small amount of advertising business.
“It’s about giving James responsibility and developing his skill set, I have complete faith in him.”
Gregorio said they viewed Melbourne as an important growth market for the agency, and were targeting growth with new clients there after picking up the Defence Force Recruiting account late last year in the Sydney office.
Wright told Mumbrella: “We are looking to drive greater integration with our Sydney operations from a creative, digital and operational point of view to make the agency more nimble. We have some cracking clients in Melbourne and we want to build and grow that base.
“We are also looking to get smarter at cross-selling our expertise across the group and so we will be focusing on that in the coming months too.”
Perry left the business last month along with creative director Matt Callan, who set up and sold BeelyCallan, which was transformed into The Face, to the then Euro Group.
He told Mumbrella: “We decided to set up PerryCallan because Matt and I felt the advertising industry was ripe for a shake up in terms of how ideas are commissioned, created and ‘sold’ to clients. We think the current model is set up to be too slow to react to clients’ needs.
“Our approach is to work in total collaboration with a client, in real time, and we guarantee to crack a brand, advertising or marketing idea, in one day.”
The agency officially opened its doors last week and has foundation clients of Rapid Security, the Altitude Volvo dealership and a firm of Melbourne lawyers.
