IPG’s Initiative is further bolstering its national media strategy team with the appointments of two senior executives. Rebecca Drummond (main photo) joins as Initiative Sydney’s first group strategy director and Toby Maclachlan (pictured below) joins as strategy director at Initiative Melbourne.
“We are unashameadly building the media industry version of The Avengers,” said Initiative Australia chief strategy officer Chris Colter. “As an agency with strategy at the core it’s vital we secure the best talent in market, with diverse backgrounds and skillsets.
“Rebecca and Toby are not just two of the most highly regarded strategists in market, but they’re powerfully unique in their backgrounds and approach and I couldn’t be more excited to see them wield their powers to create culture defining work,” said Colter
Drummond and Maclachlan are highly respected and internationally recognised strategists. Drummond has worked in strategy and investment at Mediacom and Wavemaker, as well as digital sales at News Corp. She was named Media & Marketing Global Millennial of The Year in 2019; awarded a Next-Gen Young Achiever award at the Festival of Media APAC and won Boomtown’s inaugural $1M challenge.
One of her most recognised projects was co-creating Smoggys in 2020, a brand of brightly patterned facemasks that raised more than $20,000 for the Rural Fire Service.
Before joining Initiative, Maclachlan was marketing director of financial technology and customer data business OkTY based in California. Prior to that he was strategy and content director at Love & Money Agency and before that associate creative director at The Story Lab.
His career has seen brand leadership across the world in categories such as FMCG, Entertainment, Fashion, Automotive, Government, Tourism, and Fintech. He is respected for his ability to bring brands to life, win market share, engage audiences and generally elevate business by focusing on more than just the bottom line.
“The best part is, this is only the beginning,” Colter said, “We’ve got more exciting new appointments to announce in the near future…watch this space.”
