Experiential agency George P. Johnson (GPJ) has expanded its network with the opening of a dedicated Auckland office servicing the New Zealand market, with Kiwi Tomaz Kljakovic appointed GPJ NZ country manager.
Kljakovic (featured image) previously headed up GPJ’s business development team in Australia, securing and delivering a diverse suite of customer-centric creative services across a wide array of global brands throughout APAC.
His diverse industry background has seen him work in senior national and regional sales and operations roles with Exhibitions and Trade Fairs, as national sales manager for IMG Culinary, senior account manager Asia Pacific at McCorkell & Associates, and as regional account director at Zomato.
Kljakovic said: “I’m looking forward to bringing GPJ’s global knowledge, experience and network to the brilliant Kiwis and Kiwi brands increasingly being recognised globally.
“Consumers increased desire for adoption and integration of experiences makes it a very exciting time to be working in this space.
“It’s great to be home with my whanau and friends and lead GPJ’s local operations to assist brands establish themselves in NZ and increase the country’s experiential profile.”
“GPJ New Zealand offers experiential services that can live online, on devices or in the physical world.
“We’re strategists, experience designers, creative thinkers, event production experts, data scientists and logistics specialists – all in one agency dedicated to our clients’ success.”
Project Worldwide CEO Asia Pacific, Ben Taylor said: “We are seeing exciting growth in exports by New Zealand brands and increasing interest in New Zealand as an experiences destination from clients globally.
“Project Worldwide recently acquired Auckland agency DARKHORSE and it is already enjoying great collaboration and synergy with GPJ.
“It therefore makes perfect sense to formally launch GPJ into the New Zealand market.”
GPJ ANZ senior VP/managing director and managing director, Project ANZ, Caleb Bush said: “The time is right to expand our creative services network in the form of an Auckland office, with strong growth and momentum in our ANZ operations and in regional and global clients visiting and doing business in NZ.
“The opening of the new International Convention Centre in Auckland and an impressive roster of international sporting and political events slated for NZ will create even more opportunities for GPJ, our clients and the country to shine on the domestic and world stage.”
GPJ’s track record of success in the NZ market includes working with IBM since 2000, establishing Transformation Day for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and delivering major events including the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Christchurch opening ceremony.
