Ben Cooper moves to M&C Saatchi

M&C Saatchi has lured The Monkeys’ head of digital, Ben Cooper, away from the independent agency to fill the firm’s group innovation director role.

The newly created role will see Cooper head innovation across the 10 businesses which form the M&C Saatchi Group as all well as leading social, mobile and content for the creative agency.

More details in the full release:

“12 MARCH 2014, Sydney – M&C Saatchi Sydney has made another best-in-market hire with the appointment of The Monkeys’ Head of Digital Ben Cooper to Group Innovation Director.

Widely regarded as the best digital brain in the business, Cooper’s recruitment to the newly-created position will further supercharge M&C Saatchi’s digital capability.

Working alongside CEO Jaimes Leggett, ECD Ben Welsh and CSO Justin Graham, Cooper will head innovation across the 10 businesses that comprise the M&C Saatchi Group. In addition he will lead social, mobile and content across the agency.

“We’re thrilled to have Ben joining us,” Leggett said.

“He is world class. Equal parts digital strategist, digital creative and technologist, Ben brings a stellar skillset to the table, which added to his experience and leadership, makes him unique to this market.

”A good bloke too, which helps.”

Cooper said: “Everything has clicked for me. A strong team, aligned ambition and bold clients.

“What really grabbed me was the incredible amount of thought M&C Saatchi has put into where it’s heading. They’ve a strong vision, an empowered team and the smarts to place digital and innovation at the heart of the agency.”

“It’s intensely exciting to be at the cusp of such a big future for the agency.”

For the past four and a half years, Cooper was Head of Digital at The Monkeys. Building their digital capability from scratch.

The many highlights of his time there include producing a world first ‘scrapbook’ iPad App for IKEA called KLIPPBOK; building Mixionary.com, the online authority on mixed drinks and cocktails for Diageo; and celebrating an Aussie summer via the ‘Map My Summer’ experiment for YouTube, resulting in a collaborative film mentored by iconic director George Miller. He’s driven The Monkeys’ digital success achieving accolades at Cannes, CLIO, AWARD, Webbys, Spikes, FWA, Facebook Studio, One Show, B&T and AdNews awards.

Prior to that he was Partner and Senior Digital Strategist at The Population following nearly three years as Digital Strategist at Host. Originally from the UK, he cut his teeth with a number of digital strategist roles, both client and agency side, in London and Zurich.

Cooper has tutored Digital Marketing at ADMA and curated and conducted digital training sessions at the APG, ADMA and Ad:Tech. He also leads the Australian arm of Creative Social, an international inspiration forum for leaders in digital.

He is the latest in a string of big-talent bolsters by M&C Saatchi that includes the appointment of Graham as CSO from Droga5, Group Operations Director Marc van den Berg from Ogilvy & Mather and Optus Group Head Chiquita King from Leo Burnett.”

Advertise with us

Please login with linkedin to comment