Russel Howcroft steps down from Enero board
Less than two years after he joined the board of once embattled communications and marketing holding company Enero, adman and soon to be former TV network executive Russel Howcroft has resigned.
In a statement to the ASX Enero chairman John Porter said Howcroft was leaving the board to “pursue other interests”.
Just weeks ago Howcroft announced he would also be stepping down from his role as executive general manager for Network Ten in Melbourne to take on the newly created role of chief creative officer with PWC.
Howcroft remains the chairman of Think TV, the TV research think tank that has been building a body of evidence on the efficacy of the medium, but it remains unclear if he will continue in the role when he leaves Ten.
The former head of GPY&R in Australia has also built a massive public profile as one of the panellists in the ABC’s Gruen franchise, with expectations the show is likely to be renewed for 2017.
Fellow panellist Todd Sampson announced he was resigning from Leo Burnett earlier in the week.
Howcroft’s time on the board of Enero has coincided with a resurgence in the fortunes of the holding company which houses ad agencies BMF and Naked along with a number of other communications-related businesses.
Last year the company posted its first profit in several years with a year-on-year rise on profits of 336%, after a long and slow rebuild from the ashes of the Photon Group.
Despite the strong annual result which saw shares trading as high as $1.30, the Brexit vote had an impact on the company’s fortunes in the first quarter of the 2016/2017 financial year leading it to adopt a cautious outlook.
Shares in Enero have since slipped to 91 cents.
