One Green Bean’s Carl Ratcliff joins DDB Sydney as chief strategy officer
Carl Ratcliff, previously the CEO of Havas-owned PR agency One Green Bean, has joined creative agency DDB Sydney as its chief strategy officer.
Ratcliff exited One Green Bean earlier in the month to pursue his “passion for strategic thinking” and replaces Fran Clayton who defected to McCann in April.
Ratcliff has joined ad agency DDB as its chief strategy officer
Ratcliff joined the PR agency in 2015 from his previous role as CEO of advertising agency Naked Communications. Before that, he was the managing director at creative agency BWM Dentsu.
During his time as CEO of One Green Bean the agency won clients including Tourism Australia, Red Bull, Holden, Nike, Playstation, Jetstar and Mutti Parma.
Ratcliff also oversaw the rebranding of One Green Bean’s influencer platform Crowd Atlas to Co-maker.
He joins DDB Sydney five months after its CEO and chief strategy officer, Nicole Taylor and Fran Clayton, defected to McCann.
Since then, Priya Patel has joined DDB Sydney as its managing director, succeeding Taylor.
Ratcliff said: “Whether on client side or agency side, I’ve always been a strategist at heart. Having run a P&L for the last six to seven years I’ve experienced all the stresses that come with that, and realised that my true joy lies in strategy, brands and audiences, solving problems, and working with creative brains and minds.
“I see my CV as a collection of experiences all of which have made me who I am now. I certainly don’t regret being a CEO as it taught me a lot, including making me a lot more commercially-minded, however I want to affect the primary conversations that are happening around businesses and brands.
“I’m delighted to be joining DDB Sydney for many reasons, but one is that to me DDB is the original home of great strategy. It feels like a gift being able to come back to strategy with such a renowned agency, and I can’t wait to get stuck into making amazing work with the team.”
Priya Patel, DDB Sydney managing director, added: “We’re thrilled to have Carl join DDB. Not only is he a brilliant and creative thinker – a classic ‘big brain’ – but he manages to couple this with humility, friendliness and charm.”
DDB’s clients include Virgin Australia, McDonald’s, Volkswagen, Monash Children’s Hospital and Westpac.
Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.
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Great get DDB
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When Bill Gates walks into a bar – on average, everyone in the bar is a billionaire.
When Carl comes back into Strategy, on average every planner is a genius.
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If Carl is half as good as everyone says, DDB Sydney might be the new Clems Melbourne. Well done…
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