Exclusive: Moult trades the Havas chairman post for the executive chairman role at Ogilvy Group
Campaign Brief can reveal that Havas Australia chairman Tom Moult has quit the group – which includes ad agencies Euro RSCG and The Furnace – for the executive chairman role with the Ogilvy Group.
Moult, an art director, made his creative rep at JWT London in the late 80s before being lured out to Saatchi & Saatchi, Sydney in 1987 (together with then writer partner Simon Collins) by then ECD Ron Mather. Together, the team had a brilliant couple of years, creating a string of award-winning ads, including the Rabbit ‘Shark’ commercial and the topical Volvo ‘Survive the Crash’ print ad, which ran the day after the stockmarket crash of 87.
In 1988 Moult and Collins were named Campaign Brief Creative Team of the Year and, in large part due to their creative output, Saatchi’s took out the CB Agency of the Year title.
In 1989 Moult was then poached by The Ball Partnership to the CD gig, where he remained until moving up to CEO after the agency was renamed Euro RSCG. In the late 90s, with backing from Havas, he started The Moult Agency, which, in January 2006, merged with Havas owned Arnold to create The Furnace. At that point, Moult was named chairman of Havas Australia.
(Moult was not returning calls from CB and no doubt more on this as details come to hand.)
UPDATE: After the CB Blog broke the news, Simon Canning has since reported more on The Australian website.
12 Comments
Holy Manolo.
Tom is so awesome, despite the recent gruntles everyone at Ogilvy seem to be having, would be worth switching agencies for.
I assume he’ll have to stop buying houses on weekends to save on tax and start buying countries.
Top shelf. Huzzah!
The euro rscg new business machine/ creative powerhouse will solely miss the energy and passion and genius of Tom. An inspired choice by the guns at ogilvy
The return of the grown-ups.
It was only a matter of time.
Watch out kiddies.
Just when Ogilvy looked like it was making some powerhouse moves they get in someone that hasn’t exactly supported truly great creative work for a number of years. (Tom was a believer when he was at Saatchi’s and in the early Ball Partnership period but that’s nearly 20 years ago). Like the guy above said, it’ll be a nice cushy position to buy more houses. I think the Ogilvy group has just taken one giant step back.
Not only solely, but sorely and surely, 7:22.
Nothing against Tom, but I don’t think Ogilvy will ever be a creative contender. It’s not in their make-up. The way they think, operate and conduct themselves is non-progressive, but most of all their managerial approach is from the past.
There are 2 types of agencies: The one that is creative to the core and demonstrates it with every action and there’s the opportunistic one that uses ‘creativity’ as a marketing tool. Ogilvy is obviously the latter.
legacy?
Give me a fucking break. “Havas Australia chairman Tom Moult” – chairman of what? Euro Sydney, The Furnace and a few rats and mice PR outfits in Brisbane & Melbourne. Tom does not even crack a mention on the Havas International site. It’s a token role. When are you all going to get over that Australia is just a tiny speck on the global communications map. He’s just jumped ship to an even bigger old-boy’s club. Enjoy the Havana’s Tom.
At that height ,it’s hard to get your hands dirty
unless you’ve got very long arms.
Its a P&L game.
Good luck anyway.
He’s baaaaack… Fat Tom the Whinging Pom! (It really would have made a great cartoon strip in Viz way back when).
FYI, Simon, ‘Fat Tom the Whinging Pom’ was indeed a cartoon strip in Viz way back when. I know, because I drew and wrote it.
I don’t think that was the real Simon, and not too sure about anonymous. Surreal.