Mark Ringer departs London to return to Australia before considering options in Asia-Pacific region

Former FCB Melbourne joint creative director, Mark Ringer, has returned to Australia after spending the past two years in London as ECD of strategic brand design agency Anthem Worldwide.

Prior to London the Aussie expat filled the ECD chair at TBWA Hong Kong for five years, and for the past two months Ringer has been concerning himself with architects as he begins construction on a house in Richmond in Tasmania.

Ringer said the decision to return to Australia came from being approached by another agency in London.

“It was an attractive opportunity but it made me review my future,” said Ringer. “I didn’t want to stay in London long term. I had set everything up culturally at Anthem and couldn’t do much more to integrate packing right through to all media – we had been winning pitches, making ads in every medium on top of their design base and I knew that to commit to another agency would’ve been another 2-3 years minimum. I pulled out of any further negotiations and told them in confidence that I was most likely to return to Australia within 12 months.”

Since returning to Australia he has supported his wife, Mona, with a significant moment in her career with Art2 giving her a large solo space at Art Stage Singapore. Ringer’s next career step will be in the Asia-Pacific, having already flown to Shanghai to investigate a work opportunity in China. But at the moment he is relocating to Hobart to supervise the final two months of the house build and being a constant gardener, a prolific devourer of oysters and he hopes, an occasional surfer.

From 2001 to 2005 Ringer was joint creative director at FCB Melbourne, joining from M&C Saatchi Singapore, where he was associate CD. He also worked at Batey Ads and DDB Singapore with his then long time partner Scott Lambert – now ECD at Innocean, Sydney. The pair met in the retail division of Y&R Adelaide.