Leo Burnett restructures to ‘Connect’ model as strategy head Russ Mitchinson moves on
Russ Mitchinson
Leo Burnett Sydney has made its strategy head Russ Mitchinson redundant a little over a year since recruiting him to the role from DDB Sydney, Mumbrella understands.
The move comes as the agency is attempting to move more of its clients onto the full service ‘Connect’ planning model it has been pioneering with Diageo, with Emma Montgomery now heading up the department.
In a statement this morning Leo Burnett Sydney managing director Pete Bosilkovski, said: “With growth comes change and with the rise of LB Connect we have had to make some of our more traditional roles redundant.
Emma Montgomery
“We wish Russ the best of luck in the future.”
Mitchinson joined the agency in April 2014 from DDB Sydney where he was planning partner, and worked on accounts including Woolworths, Samsung and Diageo, and accoring to his LinkedIn profile he “played a pivotal role in winning the Big W business…without a pitch”.
He is also a former chair of the Communications Council Account Planning Group (APG).
Montgomery joined at the same time as Mitchinson from media agency Starcom Mediavest as head of Connect with the agency telling Mumbrella at the time the role entailed combining “merging and emerging disciplines in our business including digital, social, PR, data analytics and media”.
In an interview in The Australian this morning (paywall) Bosilkovski said the agency has moved all of its clients to the Connect strategy, but admitted it had not been working with its other clients to the extent is has with Diageo.
He said: “If we don’t change the model which has been relevant for 60 or 70 years we become irrelevant. Public relations companies want to own social, media agencies want to own creative and everyone wants to be digital.
“The barriers that divide our business don’t mean anything to consumers and our audiences. For them it’s all one brand.”
Leos is also yet to name a replacement for executive creative director Andy DiLallo who quit in April to take the role of chief creative officer at M&C Saatchi.
Alex Hayes
I thought Todd Sampson’s mantra was
PEOPLE
PRODUCT
PROFIT
In that order!!!
Sounds like someone didn’t get the memo – “we have had to make some of our more traditional roles redundant.”
Talk about treating peoples careers with flagrant disregard!!!
Leos is an amazing agency, Russ is a great operator – pity it didn’t work out.
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what type of organisation let’s a statement like this go out.
As someone who used to work with Bos at JWT, I’m surprised and disappointed.
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Russ is a legend.
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Russ is a smart operator. I’d reckon he already has his next move mapped.
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