Liquid Ideas hires first agency director Samantha Allen, the ‘best credentialed PR in Australia’
Public relations firm Liquid Ideas, whose culture has been dominated since launch by popular boss and founder Stuart Gregor, has hired its first agency director.
Samantha Allen, formerly founder and MD of Pulse Communications in the UK, joins from Ogilvy PR in New York, where she was managing director, global consumer marketing.
Gregor describes Allen as “quite possibly the best credentialed public relations professional in Australia.”
Her duties will include leading client management, strategy and digital teams, and overseeing business performance, including new business development.
Gregor said that Allen will be “sharing the running of our growing agency with me, allowing me to return to what I hope I’m good at; focusing on creativity, client relationships, strategy and bringing to life brilliant work for all our clients. If it means less HR, finance, legal and budget meetings for me, well then I’m a happy camper.”
Allen’s credentials include working on brands such as Vodafone, Microsoft, Tourism Australia, CUB and Kraft, and while in New York running consumer campaigns for Guinness, Ford and BP’s sponsorship of London 2012.
She launched Pulse in 2003, and before that was founder and president of Chocolate Communications in San Francisco, an independent boutique agency owned by Grant Butler Coomber UK.
She also worked in London at Grant Butler Coomber and The Impact Agency.
Gregor added: “Suffice to say I am suitably intimidated by her CV, her intellectual prowess and curiosity, her contact book and her remarkable hair. I think together Sam and I can lead this company to even greater heights. And the good thing is, she agrees.”
Allen starts on Monday 7 May.
A new job title for Gregor has yet to be confirmed.
Liquid Ideas was Mumbrella’s first PR agency of the year.
Congratulations Stuart, having worked with Samantha for many years I can attest for her brilliant creativity.
Congratulations also, Samantha. Good to have you back here as part of the Aus PR landscape.
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Congrats Samantha – exciting news for you and LI.
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Many congratulations Samantha. Great news for Stuart and the LI team.
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We all know that Tim and Stuart are as thick as thieves, but if you’re going to suck in readers with the hyperbolic claim of ‘best credentialled PR in Australia’ could you please do us a favour and actually back that claim? No doubt Ms Allen is as wonderful as she sounds but that isn’t enough to substantiate the headline. And no, ‘quite possibly’ doens’t get you out of jail.
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Yes, but does she share Gregor’s impressive tolerance of the fruits of the vine. I doubt it… few do.
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Why do we always assume that you have to work overseas for some big global agency to get cred in this business. I worked in London for several years for global agencies and let me just say the people who work in them are often the worst. Some of the best PR operators are one-man(woman)-bands.
At the end of the day, the true test comes when you can bring in business. End of story.
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