PHD Australia has appointed Alex Williams and Ben Lynch to the newly created roles of head of planning and effectiveness across both the agency’s Sydney and Melbourne offices, respectively.
The roles will see both leaders continue to drive and challenge planning excellence and effectiveness across each office, ensuring that clients receive market-leading planning intelligence from insight to measurement.
Williams will report to the incoming Sydney MD Pia Coyle, while Lynch will report to Melbourne MD, Simon Lawson.
Alex Pacey, PHD Australia chief product officer, said: “This is my dream team, Alex and Ben are absolute guns and at the cutting edge of what it means to drive evidence-based planning and effectiveness in Media and Marketing.
“In terms of bringing to bear their knowledge to solve client comms challenges there are none better. I have no doubt that they will make everyone who works with them better and the fact that they are both PHD to the core is the icing on the cake.”
Williams started his career as one of the first UK media apprentices in 2011 in partnership with UK based creative training specialists, The Creative Alliance & Modus, a Worcestershire based full-service marketing agency.
Since then, he has spent time working in planning roles at Mediacom & Starcom before joining PHD in 2019. His experience spans 11 years and he’s led the planning for clients such as Google, Samsung, PepsiCo and the National Health Service.
Lynch returns to PHD Australia following a four-year stint at Omnicom London. He has worked across a broad range of clients over the years from Finance, FMCG, Charities, Automotive, Retail, Alcohol & more.
Lynch offers a unique perspective to planning & effectiveness. With a heritage in planning & a previous winner of Cannes Young Lions UK. including econometric modelling for some of the largest UK & European advertisers.
Williams said of his appointment said: “I’m incredibly excited to be stepping into this new role PHD have created, it really speaks to their long-term commitment in finding a better way to drive growth for our clients.
“By bringing together the theory and evidence aspects of media planning, I hope to help our clients cut through the mystery of how advertising and media impacts tangible business results.”
Lynch also said of his appointment: “I am excited to be back in Australia & back in purple at PHD, a thoroughly planning lead agency. The evolution of the Head Planning’s role to focusing on effectiveness more explicitly speaks to PHDs approach to finding disproportionate growth.
“Effectiveness as discipline is as much about measuring what’s working as it is about planning with richer evidence & understanding of the challenges, opportunities & the options to purse business growth.”
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Top image: Alex Williams and Ben Lynch