Mutinex’s Mat Baxter moves away from CEO position
Mat Baxter, the Asia Pacific chief executive officer of software company, Mutinex, is gearing up to move into a board advisory role.
Despite only taking on the CEO role at the end of May, Baxter will “transition” out of the position from 30 September.
According to Baxter, the decision to step away from his current CEO gig was prompted by there “not [being] enough space” for him and the company’s global CEO, co-founder and product leader, Henry Innis, in its day to day operations.
“Going in I think we both knew this would be a grand experiment,” Baxter said.
“What became apparent to me in the 4 months since joining is that there’s not enough space for Henry and I in the day to day business.
“So I took the simple decision to resign, and the board had asked that I serve as an advisor.
“I continue to be as big an advocate for the company today as ever. And I continue to be an investor and shareholder,” Baxter finished.
“Mat came to us and said he felt he could contribute more effectively as an external advisor than an internal CEO. We respect his decision and want to continue to get the benefit of his extensive global experience and advice,” clarified Brodie Arnhold, chairman at Mutinex.
Innis also spoke on the fresh development, saying that both his and Baxter’s hands-on approach to their work resulted the requirement of a new business plan – one that allows both marketing and strategy experts to bolster Mutinex with their collective expertise.
“Mat and I are both extremely hands on operators and I’m a very involved co-founder,” Innis explained. “I think he felt a little constrained because of that and so we’ve created this new plan to address it.”
Innis also spoke on the possibilities Baxter’s new role will offer the company. Moving forward, Mutinex will be able to leverage Baxter’s expertise in its US expansion operations, something it could not wholly embrace when Baxter was in charge of the APAC region.
“The other advantage here is that we get to access Mat’s experience in the US market which wasn’t being directly accessed in his role as APAC CEO, so we’ll be tapping him up for help there too,” Innis explained.
Prior to joining Mutinex, Baxter had been based in the US as the global CEO of innovation and design organisation, Huge.
Throughout his career, both in Australia and overseas, Baxter has worked at prolific marketing and media companies in leadership roles, including UM Worldwide as its CEO, IPG Mediabrands as its global chief strategy and creative officer, and Initiative as its global CEO and chairman.
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Matthew is the editorial assistant at Mumbrella. He joined the company at the end of September 2023.
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Yes, very telling there’s not a single female leader on the leadership team and the few they’ve had in the past (in senior roles) are no longer in the business.
Their HR leader just resigned as well so that’s telling.
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Bobby Axelrod of the industry? GTFO
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Things starting to unravel. Onboarding process overly laborious. Clients questioning value and quality of data. Outspoken leadership potentially not as smart as they would like people to believe. Recently appointed CEO moved into an ‘advisory’ role purely as a PR exercise to say “there’s no problem here”.
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Yes, Henry is tough to work with. He’s headstrong and opinionated. His reality distortion field is for real. He is extremely comfortable with discomfort. And he’s geared to performance more than anyone else I’ve ever worked with. Most people, particularly us softies in adland, are not accustomed to it. We like our pats on the back for pithy copy, stolen art, and “localised OOH creative”.
Working at Mutinex is not for everyone. It definitely wasn’t for me. I didn’t hate it, but it was challenging and not my jam. You have to be maniacally focused on the business, and helping achieve Henry’s vision — which is fair. Mat knew exactly what he was signing up for, probably didn’t like being the big dog, and called time before it festered. Win-win.
What’s the big deal?
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I have nothing else.
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The best.
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There’s some clever people on this thread who’ve built businesses by the looks… Baxter is smart and probably a bit volatile – Innis maybe the same but both parties will do fine. Solid business shaking up a category – globally. Agree with a few of the comments here – there’s plenty happening in the sector to yell about, this one not so much.
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So, they gave it a go in a growing business and it didn’t work out. How many of the people on here have preached the ‘fail fast’ mantra to clients? The banal comments here are clearly from desk dwellers who’ve never started a business or had the stones to make big decisions. It really is a sad reflection on the ‘comfortable classes’ weak view of the world and the reason why most advertising is so bad.
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Thank goodness Mutinex has realised that Australia is too small for it and is now making inroads in the USA , They celebrate tall poppies there.
Avoid the trap of hiring agency people. Their days are numbered. Drugs and rock’n’roll has been replaced by data science.
Data science is what you are about and your clients really appreciate you. You are a great company and Australia should be proud of you.
The USA and the rest of the world will appreciate you and reward you properly for your innovation which is effecting a paradigm shift in the advertising and marketing world.
PS Note to the Mutinex Chairman and Board – you do not need Matt Baxter as an adviser.
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There is definitely credit to start-ups having ups and downs.
And if you view this in isolation, some of the more positive comments make sense.
But this isn’t isolated, and it is one of (way too) many questionable things. Patterns tell the real story here – and it isn’t good.
Thankfully there is some competition in the space now which will be good for all.
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I think you have to say at least they both had a go, few 30 year olds would have had the courage to hire Baxter and Baxter was well versed in the ins and outs of Mutinex before he arrived. He consulted widely before he took the job. Both have put their hands up, better to try and fail than never try at all. Mutinex, and there are other start ups that do the same, has created jobs, it has created opportunity for many, it has a cohort of employees who have been there three/ four years and we should all want them to win. The courage of these founders today, is our opportunity tomorrow. Applaud them, they are our future. It is too easy to criticise, I wonder how many of the comments here come from people who have a successful start up?
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Has the cheekiest smile in media!
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it’s good to see the hands on leader has caused a senior man to move on after multiple senior women in then leader positions (COO, GM) have also left after a few months.
An equal opportunity rocketship
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They need to focus on their product (which may look sexy but is not up to scratch compared to other more rigorous options) and stop endlessly marketing themselves. Its embarrassing.
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Maybe Henry can jump in to provide an idea of the average tenure of a Mutinex employee? I’d set the over/under at six months.
This, of course, is excluding Henry’s tenure. I felt like I needed to point this out considering he likes to include himself in everything.
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Surely in a space of (alleged) mathematics, whereby you’re recommending insights that have fiscal (and personal reputation) consequences; the company itself needs to be stable…
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It doesn’t take a genius to know that any organisation thrives when it has two leaders. Name a country that doesn’t have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would catholicism be without the popes. – Oscar, the office
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Tell me you don’t abide by Church and State without telling me you don’t abide by Church and State…
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Far too many leaders focussed on their own personal profile and the perception of themselves in market vs building up their team and ‘doing the work’. It’s never going to end well when perception is made more important than reality.
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Or is he gone too without a release?
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Good lord, how bad of a company do you need to be to bring out the Mumbrella wolves like this?
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Unfortunately, it’s a predictable mix of a boys’ club mentality, self-promotion, and a constant need to appear as the smartest person in the room, mistaking a global CEO title for genuine world-class leadership—observations made firsthand.
Notably, the average tenure there is less than four months.
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Comments section predictably tall poppy. The Mutinex team are a genuine Aussie success story. They’ve built this business from scratch and provided lots of local jobs – while staying relentlessly on-mission. Both Henry and Mat have been transparent about the reasons for the split – that’s to be commended in my book. Mat wasn’t there long enough for any dependency, so play-on Mutinex. Plenty of people are wishing you continued success. Just not in this comments section.
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Blokesworld – all puff and no stuff.
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And to think it was just June this year that Henry won the Media week “Next of the Best: Leadership” award. Guessing all these commenters voted for it? Awkward…
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No schadenfreude here. If you’ve followed Henry’s story (and I don’t know the dude personally) he’s headstrong, pretty damn smart, real, and has made something pretty extraordinary in Mutinex. Maybe he’s a PAI to work with… probably he’s a PAI to work with. Most founders are becuase they’re passionate and it’s their baby. But at least Mat and Henry have the respect for the thing that is being built to PR their break up rather than burn it to the ground. I hope they both succeed.
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Amazed these guys have got away with it for so long
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Is anyone really surprised by this?
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“Good luck to anyone else!”
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Is someone going to buy the rights to the Mutinex insider tell-all pod?
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You’ll be on the wrong side of history on this one.
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There are just certain stories that you know the comment section is going to be fire
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Where is Farrugia?
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Jobs for the boys didnt work?
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Wouldn’t want to be the VC partner on this right now.
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It would be nice to see more people running businesses under 30. The conviction of founders creates opportunities and jobs for everyone…. That is the Mutinex story and start up and scale ups are hard…. It was good to see these guys have a go, take the risk and resolve it…. Sad it didn’t work….. but then it is an always better to try and fail than never try in the first place. Hope they both do well.
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If you’re mad, then you’re probably jell.
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