Anathea Ruys took over as CEO of UM Australia in March 2021 – a role that has seen her successfully navigate the business in and out of lockdowns.
Ruys spoke to Mediaweek about the journey so far, being recognised for her leadership, delivering on her goals for UM and her outlook for the agency in the year ahead.
Ruys on stepping into the CEO role and its challenges
The CEO admitted that while the first twelve months of her role did not go as imagined, thanks to lockdowns, she was able to visit every UM office across Australia to meet with teams and spend time with clients.
“That meant that when Sydney went into lockdown, and everything went back online 100%, I had already made connections. For me, that was absolutely critical,” she said.
Ruys noted: “While I am so pleased that as a society we have learned we don’t need to have people sitting in the same space to achieve outcomes and results, I remain convinced that having an IRL connection with people makes a huge difference to your ability to connect and engage with people.”
The CEO shared that her favourite part of the role has been getting to know the people, what drives and motivates them, understanding what is important to them outside of the office, and how UM can help them grow and thrive – particularly with the challenge of recruiting and retaining talent.
Ruys noted that talent retention and recruitment has been challenging for UM, much like other agencies. With fewer numbers coming in from overseas to build up teams, she said that people are evaluating what they want from their work, resulting in the scramble to poach for people.
“We have by no means been immune to those pressures, but what I hope we are able to do is work with our people to understand what is important to them at this specific time in their career and how we can help them achieve their goals,” she said.
Ruys on her leadership style and UM team
Ruys described herself as a people-focused person and a people-focused leader. She said: “I love working in a team, I love getting to know people, I love watching people grow, thrive and develop.”
The CEO said that she believes in openness, transparency and vulnerability. “When someone works at your organisation, they are making a huge investment in you – they invest their time, their energy, their smarts – and they need to get a dividend back on that investment.
“That’s why it is critical that you understand what return each individual wants from that investment,” she added.
Ruys noted that those commitments might change over time depending on life circumstances. “These conversations need to be ongoing to make them meaningful. By no means do we always get this right, but we will always strive to do this,” she added.
The CEO also proudly called her team incredible; she praised their passion, dedication, and pride in their work and their strong sense of team.
“Everyone wants to uplift those around them. It really is a great joy to work with them all,” she added.
Being recognised for her work as CEO and delivering on her goals for UM
Ruys was recently recognised for her work as CEO, an honour she called very gratifying but a title that was not hers alone.
“I have always said that pitch teams don’t win pitches, agencies win pitches,” she said.
“It’s folks from across the whole business who pick up workloads, who sit in on rehearsals, who contribute to brainstorms, who share learnings that all contribute to a win. And I feel exactly the same about being recognised as a leader.
“It really is about recognition for the entire team and how we work together,” she added.
Ruys set out three simple goals for the agency – reduce workloads and stress, elevate work outputs, and ensure people see a career path at UM and the media industry – which she delivered.
The CEO said: “That’s why we are working so hard on how we automate as much of the repetitive, lower-value tasks to free our people up to invest their time in more strategic thinking, to focus on the way they are negotiating and delivering value to clients, to explore data and uncover powerful insights. That’s all incredibly exciting work, but you need time and space to do that.
“I really believe that we have a much more human understanding of the pressures individuals face in their lives outside the office.
Ruys continued: “In days gone by, we did expect the office and home to be relatively separate, but once you’ve been in someone’s lounge, or kitchen, or bedroom via Teams for a couple of years, we can appreciate all parts of their lives and how intertwined they all are.
“That’s why conversations around what is important to each person and how we can work to deliver that together are critical. We lose too many people from this industry because they believe it is not an industry that is family-friendly, for example,” she said.
“I genuinely don’t believe that to be the case, but unless we are having conversations and exploring what is important to people across their careers, then we will continue to lose them,” she added.
Success amid the pandemic and recent client wins
Ruys said UM’s success during the pandemic was linked to how their clients performed and that each was assessed individually.
“We had some clients whose businesses thrived during the pandemic and others who were impacted by lockdowns, the retail environment, the travel environment.
“It was so important to work with each client individually on how we engaged with them and what the right areas of focus were,” she added.
UM experienced a great start to the year with many new clients, including Dyson and Airtasker. She noted that their wins also include their work with existing clients.
Ruys noted that this year, UM had created three campaigns she counts as major “client wins” the agency is very proud of.
“As part of XXXX Zero’s launch and to elevate XXXX’s sustainability credentials, we created a carbon-absorbing OOH mural that cleaned the air around it – this execution has inspired Habitat Media to make carbon-absorbing paint a standard offering for all future murals,” she said.
Ruys added: “The acceleration of HBF’s distinctive asset, Buddy the Quokka, innovatively through The Voice and with NOVA creating stronger resonance for the brand; and the Australian Government AEC campaign for the recent federal election where critically we help the AEC get 80,000 Australians aged 18-24 to enrol online after the election was announced, resulting in 88.1% ready to vote on 21 May.”
The year ahead for UM
Looking to the year ahead at UM, Ruys shared that the agency has a number of projects and milestones they hope to achieve.
The CEO shared that UM’s focus will continue to create a working environment and culture that celebrates its people and helps them achieve their personal and career growth goals.
“We are very excited about our national conference, which happens soon and is a great opportunity for us to spend time together and discuss how we are helping futureproof our clients and their businesses,” she said.
“Critical to enabling all our people to deliver more high-value outputs for our clients will be the continued acceleration of our automation project to create more time for our people,” she added.
Ruys shared that UM is building new consulting practice products, particularly in their audience, data and technology offering, which she said accelerated their clients’ digital and data transformation.
Lastly, the CEO noted that they are doing work in the attention space, which she called “extremely progressive and exciting.”
“I am looking forward to being able to share that with the industry at large sometime in the not too distant future,” Ruys added.
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Top image: Anathea Ruys