Wavemaker promotes internally for new chief strategy officer
Wavemaker Australia has named James Boardman as the agency’s first chief strategy officer after a more than decade long career with the GroupM agency.
Continuing to report to Wakemaker Australia chief growth and product officer, James Hier, Boardman will be responsible for leading the agency’s strategy and planning practice across all five Australian offices and Auckland, New Zealand.
His remit will cover output across Wavemaker’s diverse client portfolio, guiding clients through the rapid changes affecting the media landscape leveraging Wavemaker and GroupM’s data capabilities to create new growth opportunities for their brands.
Hier said Boardman was “genuinely passionate” about Wavemaker’s mission to “positively provoke growth” for clients.
“Tapping into his regional experience – including new thinking and approaches being rolled out in Asia – he will help elevate our work to be more holistic and high impact in driving client growth,” he said.
Having first joined Wavemaker’s predecessor MEC as a strategist in 2011, Boardman remained with the agency through the Wavemaker merger, before taking on a brief stint as national strategy director at Bohemia group in 2019.
He returned to Wavemaker as national strategy partner later that year, and was last promoted to APAC growth strategy partner in 2022.
As APAC growth strategy partner, Boardman played a key part in local, regional and global pitches, and he will continue to provide support for Wavemaker’s Asia-Pacific strategy community in the new role.
Of his appointment, Boardman said he was excited to help shape the next phase of client’s media strategy and planning.
“I’m keen to lean heavily into our amazing global network and both import and export new innovations, approaches and ways of thinking about the media landscape and how we use it to connect businesses to their consumers.”
Boardman’s promotion is the latest in a number of recent appointments at Wavemaker, with the agency last month naming Peter Grose and Justin Arlt on its Marketplace leadership team.
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