AFFINITY has appointed Paul Henderson as head of operations and a member of the executive leadership team.
Henderson brings over two decades of operational and commercial leadership experience spanning Toyota, MasterCard, Foxtel, Qantas and American Express.
“Plenty of agencies talk about transformation. Few are willing to put real skin in the game,” Angela Smith, CEO and co-founder of AFFINITY said.
“Paul is that rare breed. Brilliantly commercial, unfailingly rigorous, and genuinely passionate about building systems where client and employee experience are equally prioritised. He brings a forensic focus to operational excellence that most agencies talk about, but few ever deliver”.
Henderson’s career includes co-leading MercerBell under Julie Dormand, and more recently, steering operations at Smrtr, where he ran an ISO process and built foundations for scale.
“Paul is an operational asset to a business. His commercial strength, operational due diligence and hunger to learn deeply about new technology and data make him one of the best in the business. In a world where operational leaders need to adapt beyond the old rule book, meet stringent ethical and risk procedures whilst also being kind, Paul’s deep expertise will build strong trust for the AFFINITY team and clients,” Smith added.
“Joining AFFINITY was a no-brainer. This is a business that does what it says, identifies the right opportunities, executes with precision, and stays until the results are in. The opportunity to help scale this kind of ambition and do it with a leadership team that genuinely values delivering tangible growth, is a rare thing,” Henderson said.
Henderson has already hand-picked and welcomed Heather Cox to the delivery and operations team. With experience at Enero group agencies Orchard and BMF, as well as Ogilvy, Cox has managed projects for accounts including KFC and Mitsubishi.
“Heather’s ability to get up to speed and deliver every project with grace and precision has set a new bar for the kind of talent we want at AFFINITY. She’s already making us better, and that’s the standard we’re setting,” Henderson added.
