M&C Saatchi swells strategy ranks to 35 with hire of BBH London’s Ross Berthinussen
M&C Saatchi has made yet another addition to its strategy team taking Ross Berthinussen from BBH London as group strategy director.
The appointment, following hot on the heels of the agency picking up Kate Smithers in a similar role from Ogilvy & Mather in London, bolsters the strategy team offering to 35 at the agency, which includes 11 members of the innovation unit led by Ben Cooper.
Berthinussen will lead strategy for the NRMA/SGIO, Lexus and Google accounts for the agency, and report into Justin Graham.
“Ross is one of the most innovative strategic thinkers anywhere. He attacks clients’ business challenges from all sides, making the seemingly complicated brutally simple and has a track record of developing truly ground-breaking, integrated solutions,” said Graham.
“Most crucially though he is hard wired to provide the sort of long-term strategic leadership and vision within the agency and on our key pieces of client businesses. As a mad-keen surfer, he’s also going to have more luck catching some decent swell here than in London.”
He has spent the last nine years with BBH London, most recently as strategy director and partner, working on campaigns including the relaunch of British Airways with ‘To Fly To Serve’ and the brand’s sponsorship of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London, and most recently led strategy for KFC in the UK.
Prior to BBH he worked for Grey London for three years across clients including Visa, P&G and Diageo, and his awards include IPA Effectiveness gongs, and APG and Marketing Society Golds.
Berthinussen said: “They are an agency that have embraced innovation at their core and have an insatiable appetite to solve their clients’ business problems in ways far beyond advertising.
“I believe with the resources and people they have invested in they have the potential to lead not just this market, but the world. It’s extremely exciting.”
Ross is a star. Good luck mate
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If he’s the most innovative planner out there matching him with NRMA is a good match then…..ha ha
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A pommie planner with a beard, Ferrier with love this.
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Congratulations to Ross. But the number of people agency talent that is being imported for senior positions is a sad indictment of the culture of nurturing and teaching within Aussie Agencies.
We are either not taking the time to train people to be first class leaders, or we have become complacent & lazy.
For an agency with a ‘salary freeze’ on M&C are sure spending a lot of cash to bring in talent….
Perhaps they need to start looking at some account service 101 here.
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Great hire, was in London when Ross was kicking arse on BA, and was jealous as hell. Looks like they’re really firing up strategy to match their creative guns at M&C, not a bad ploy
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They’re going to have so many awesome PowerPoint decks it’s going to be amazing.
I just hope all of their compelling value propositions align with my lifestyle aspirations. It’s going to be extremely difficult not to buy every product and service they advertise with such strategic depth.
Look out Australia you’re going to be mindlessly parting with a lot more cash due to these geniuses.
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