Former Thinkerbell Head Brand Thinker Josh Manning joins Hello as new Head of Strategy

Hello has made a major hire with the appointment of Josh Manning as Head of Strategy, joining from Thinkerbell at a pivotal moment in the agency’s evolution.

In his new role, Manning will lead strategy across Hello’s existing client portfolio and play a central role in evolving the agency’s strategic philosophy as it scales locally and internationally.

Manning has led strategy for the likes of Unilever, McDonald’s, Menulog, Vodafone, BINGE and Royal Caribbean, with work spanning brand positioning, business vision, large-scale behaviour change, integrated campaigns, earned activations and owned media strategies. His work has been recognised at the Effies, WARC Effectiveness Awards, Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia, The Webbys and New York Festivals, alongside a recent ARIA nomination.

After more than a decade as Australia’s most awarded social-first agency, Hello’s transformation into a creative agency and full-service, connected marketing group has scaled quickly since its launch in January 2025. With strategy, creative, social, talent, PR, media and events all now under one unified operating model built for speed, cultural relevance and measurable impact.

Says Sam Kelly, CEO, Hello: “We’ve proven the power of our methodology over the last 12 months, not only in terms of driving a full spectrum of results but in overcoming the limitations of historical processes and village models. As a result, we’re now sitting down with progressive brands and looking at how they can win over the next 12-36 months. They know we can build brands and engage customers in a new media environment, now it’s about building platforms that will stand the test of time and collaborative resourcing models to ensure we are future fit.”

Key clients that have already taken advantage of Hello’s new integrated offer include Uber, Commbank, Unilever, Paramount+, Brookvale Union, OPPO, Tyro and Koala.

Says Manning: “What’s so impressive about Hello is the executional excellence they’ve built across so many different disciplines, especially disciplines that are going to play such a massive role in how brands are built moving forward. As we all know, good strategy is nothing if you don’t back it up with amazing execution, so the chance to shape a strategic offering to bring together and complement such a well oiled, forward facing, executional machine was just too good to pass up.”

Manning joins other new creative agency hires Olivia Watts (Head of Events), Allex Conley (Head of PR), Dave Varney (Creative Director), Michael Papageorgiou (Design Lead), and Sunil Mandavadi (Client Lead), delivering projects for Uber, Unilever, Paramount+ and Brookvale Union.

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