CHE Proximity CEO Chris Howatson and CCO Ant White set to depart to form Howatson+White
CHE Proximity chief executive officer Chris Howatson and chief creative officer Ant White have announced their intention to leave the agency, to form Howatson+White in early 2021.
Says Howatson (above left, with White): “CHE Proximity and Clemenger Group has been my life for the last 19 years. I’ve learned from the very best people, worked on the very best clients, and been steered by the very best in Robert Morgan. I’m grateful for every opportunity I’ve been afforded and know the team will continue CHEP’s insatiable appetite for innovation and creative excellence.”
Howatson and White will remain with CHE Proximity until the end of February to enable a smooth transition with CHEP’s management team.
CHEP will continue its forward trajectory under the leadership of its management team, consisting of Andrew Drougas, Renee Hyde, Martin Griffin, David Halter, Mark Gretton, Michelle Brooks, James Greaney, Nicole Flinton-Ferraro, Glen Dickson, Cameron Hoelter, Helen James and Mike Deane.
Clemenger Group Executive Chairman Robert Morgan acknowledged the tremendous contribution of Chris Howatson to the Group: “Chris has shown fantastic leadership at CHE Proximity over the past eight years and prior to that with Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne and Brisbane. He has certainly made the most of the opportunity to run CHE Proximity and has built a fantastic Agency.
“He leaves CHE Proximity in safe hands and I trust the agency will continue to do exciting, new age and innovative work and solutions for our clients, as we head into 2021 and in the coming years.
“We thank him for all he has done for the Clemenger Group and the support he has given the Board and our companies over many years.”
“We also recognise Ant for his great creative leadership at CHE Proximity over the past five years. He has led a powerful creative offering which has been a driving force behind some of the Agency’s most successful campaigns in recent years.”
51 Comments
They are properly fucked.
Howie is integral, in everything.
There is no heir apparent at CHEP or in the wider industry.
All CHEP clients can be considered live opportunities.
Creatively they’ve never hit the heights, but Howie’s business smarts and salesmanship are unrivalled.
Very, VERY this.
Made a tidy profit from heir shares on the back of enforced lockdown pay cuts that other holding groups are now paying back.
Calm down Howie.
Howie hasn’t been @ CHEP Melb for the last 3 years and life is good. I’d say a break away from the group would be good for them both.
If anything, this is a win win for clients, the group and the work. Clems Syd may struggle to pay for that nice new office, but I’m sure they will find a way.
Do the right thing before you leave and see that all staff are paid back their cut salaries.
Legends
This is good for both parties. Howie will do really well as he’s tenacious, smart and driven; but it also gives CHEP a chance to evolve and change and that’s a positive. CHEP success was driven by more than one person.
Geez the name dropping shows how conscious they are of the market thinking that CHEP is just Howie
+
Creatively this is a huge win.
He has led a powerful creative offering which has been a driving force behind some of OUR CLIENTs’ most successful campaigns in recent years.”
It’s never really about the client at a creative agency. You just fund the ideas that win awards
Maybe it wasn’t creativity they were worried about but job loss. I guess it’s hard to see the truth sitting at your desk in silence all day saying hello to no one.
imagine how much Clemenger would have tried to pay them to stay – in 5 years time Howie will have taken all those clients to his new agency. he’s too good
The gravy train just came spectacularly off the tracks for the Clemenger board!!
This is the most significant news in our industry in the past 12 months. The impact of Howie – not to mention Ant has in the Clemenger Group and in the wider industry, is significant. Nothing short of a disaster for Clemenger Group, and with Clemenger BBDO falling at the same time, this has to be the Group’s darkest day. This change is just the beginning of what was a once great empire.
Howie was definitely the face of CHEP externally, but internally the work is reliant on well structured teams & individuals.
Similarly, Ant provided direction, but he wasn’t the ideas man.
CHEP won’t have any issues powering on without either of them, this will just be a speed bump.
Yeah, loosing the two top people and the guy who built the agency is just a speed bump. In no business is that true!
One way to rebrand after the mass zoom firing.
Howie was the ideas guy. He put in place the structures, the people and was central to almost every pitch.
While those left behind might like to think they have what it takes, they are kidding themselves.
Easy to cast stones from the outside when you don’t know what goes on inside. You wish for the demise of the group as it gives you hope. The door is still just as closed for y’all.
who wants to ‘run towards the fire’ and help these two succeed?
Chris:
Well, don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna to do what you all think I’m gonna to do, which is just FLIP OUT! But let me just, let me just say, as I ease out of the office I helped build — I’m sorry, but it’s a FACT! — that there is no such thing as growth at all costs.
These clients have money. These clients have money. In fact, they’re coming with me. I’m starting a new company, and the clients will come with me. You can call me sentimental. The clients — they’re coming with me.
Okay. If anybody else wants to come with me, this moment will be the moment of something real, and FUN, and inspiring in this god-forsaken business, and we will do it together. Who’s comin’ with me? Who’s coming with me? Who’s coming with me besides the clients here?
Ant:
I will go with you.
Chris:
Ant White, thank you! We’ll see you all again. Sleep tight.
Anyone who has worked with these guys knows exactly how talented they are. Almost everything they touched turned to gold. I’m grateful to have had some time at CHEP and learnt a shitload from them. Looking forward to seeing what they can do freed from the shackles of Clems.
You wish that crown was slipping. Sadly for the rest of you has-beens, it isn’t.
Keep trying
I can assure you CHEP is not 2 men. There’s still a shit load of talent in that building and if anything, the work will get better.
Less than two years ago Clems decided to hand the keys to the kingdom to Howie.
Genuinely shocks me that the people at the top can KEEP making the wrong decision every time they were faced with who to lead, and yet no one up the food chain at BBDO is realising who it is that is the real problem.
NG: If they hadn’t fired me, I could help them out of this mess now.
Everyone Else: Bah ha ha ha ha ha. No thanks.
An agency is bigger than two people.
In saying that though, these are two pretty important people. I understand some of the comments below from CHEp people that want to play it off like it’s no big deal, and also the doom-sayers from competitive businesses that want to watch the world burn.
Neither of them are right. The truth here really is that both of them are very important, and this will take some time to remedy. Of course it’s not the end of chep, stop being silly. And of course it’s a big deal that they are leaving, stop being silly.
It’s rough, and it’ll be rough, but we will find our way out of it.
They really missed a zinger on the agency name
New messiah required. Apply within.
As with all things folks, see what happens. Did any of you predict COVID-19 and the massive disruption it has caused to absolutely everything?
No. Seriously, nobody did. Nobody. Absolutely, nobody.
So see what happens, eh?
No real surprise. Special group are probably the most successful agency in Australia right now and Howie would know that. He would also know he’s capable of building his own Special group in 3-4 years. CHEp will meander along without him. Award budgets will dry up. Clients will think Howie is the reason their work now looks a little less successful. Yucky time to be at CHEp but that’s what happens to meteoric risers.
A sigh of relief.
This sorry saga shows once more how the ‘Big C’ group devours its own children. When will they learn that is people that make companies successful and not the other way around? It needs a clean up and it needs to start with the dinosaurs at the top.
You negative grubs have no idea how good CHEP is as a place of work. Howie is a flat-out legend, a gentleman and a very hard worker. You tall poppy trolls, fuck off and go back to building your horribly inadequate books.
We launched another book today. More free work for awards. I work at CHEP.
Just give us our pay back and go
I also enjoy being paid my full wage.
Lots of generic talk about people wanting their full wages back. Be good to know which agencies have asked their staff to take pay cuts this year and to what degree.
You do realise there’s a whole gaggle of dinosaurs made that call above them right? The real people you work for? The more you keep blaming these two, the less likely you are to be remunerated.
Everyone has a boss. And shit rolls down hill.
Try to spin it any way you want, but I’m pretty sure the buck stops with the CEO
Clemenger buys Howie’s new agency in 5 years time
Clemenger Howie Edge feat. Ant
This is genuine lols.
If you think you’re still wearing the crown, then that level of delusion explains an awful lot about the decline.
As long as The Dinosaurs persist on not making themselves extinct (retire) no meaningful evolution of anything will take place. They might shuffle the chairs again in their incessant musical chairs game, but it would be just cosmetic and meaningless. In the last 3 years a massive amount of real talent has left this group, most of them to very successful undertakings. The decline has been steady since then. Yet the people glued to their ‘chairs’ remain, oblivious to it, blaming others rather than themselves and pretending the Titanic is not sinking. I wish Howie and Ant the best of lucks. I’m certain they will do well and as usual, success, is the best revenge.
The dinosaurs are not the problem. They employed you and they paid you. If you think you’re smarter and better, leave and start your own business. And it seems many have from the contents of your comment. Or are you special and expect it all to be handed to you on a plate – at no cost to you and no risk to you?
childish and lacking integrity, like most commentators here. Because he’s the deal: You are most probably taking a salary from The Dinosaurs, as you put it. You’re hamsters in the wheel. Maybe you’re smart enough to understand your late nights and weekends are funding the system you hate. Maybe you can think beyond the excitement of winning awards. Or you don’t entirely swallow agency culture and the slogans created to give you a sense of purpose and belonging, read: Keeps you as a cog in the system. But the fact is you’re picking up a paycheck from The Dinosaurs. Don’t like it? What’s the point bitching here, like factory workers once the boss has turned his back. Do something about it! Start your own venture, leave the industry and create something new. But please stop bitching, it’s a downward spiral which only hurts you. Find what it takes, or sit down, shut up and do what you’re paid to do.
So long as someone isn’t stuck in their ways, youth is a mindset not an age. I’ve seen plenty of 20-something year old ‘dinosaurs’ who couldn’t be fucked pushing the boat out past the harbour. I like having older people around in the business. They don’t want to ‘hang out’ in the office until 10pm every night. There is a lot to be learned from their experience. Witnessing the demise of advertising agencies who don’t retain (bother to pay for) senior creative talent has been one of the saddest things in our industry.
Howie – he’s a legend and a true leader. I was one of CHEP’s early designers and have witnessed how charismatic and smart Chris is. No doubt he will do very well and go even further – congratulations and best wishes!