Publicis Groupe has announced the appointment of Michael Rebelo as CEO for Australia and New Zealand.
Rebelo started his career at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney in 1997 and held various agency leadership roles in Vietnam, New Zealand, Singapore, London, and Australia across the Saatchi & Saatchi network.
In 2017, he was appointed CEO of Publicis Communications for Australia and New Zealand.
In this newly created role, Rebelo’s responsibilities include driving greater integration across the group’s capabilities to transform its relationship with existing clients and win the trust of new ones, to cultivate and attract the best talents across the Publicis’ agencies and disciplines, as well as improving its resources management across disciplines and solutions.
In his role, Rebelo will be supported by solution hub leadership – Publicis Media chairman John Preston and Publicis.Sapient managing director Sarah Adam-Gedge.
Rebelo’s promotion was announced shortly after the departure of Publicis Media’s ANZ chief, Matt James, who is taking on a global role at Zenith.
Loris Nold, CEO of Publicis Groupe across the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said: “I am incredibly excited with Mike’s appointment.
“He and I have partnered for years now and I am very confident that he will successfully drive our Groupe across these two exciting, strategic and highly sophisticated markets.
“Our strategy relies on two very important pillars: a solution-led approach and a country-led approach. This is to ensure that we accelerate on our global game changers while driving acceleration at a country level.
“The ‘Power of One’ has generated some great examples of collaboration in Australia and New Zealand, and it has transformed the way we work with our clients while bringing great opportunities to our people.
“With Mike at the helm, working closely with John and Sarah, we have the right team and the right model to accelerate in Australia and New Zealand.
“Last but not least, I want to congratulate Matt James for his appointment as global brand president, Zenith. Matt has been an incredible partner, working seamlessly with Mike, Henri, Pauly, Phil and I, and I can’t think of a better leader to take on this exciting new role.”
Commenting on his new role, Rebelo said: “I’m genuinely honoured to be taking on the role of CEO of Publicis Groupe for Australia and New Zealand.
“I’m also thrilled for Matt as he takes on his new global role and thank him for his partnership and collaboration these past couple of years.”
“The Groupe leadership team and our agency leaders have created a genuine rhythm across the organisation when it comes to applying the Power of One principles to clients, people and opportunities.
“We have set good foundations in Australia and New Zealand. There’s still more hard work ahead of us, but the possibilities we’ve been creating and will continue to create for our clients and agencies is currently unmatched in the market. That makes my new job uniquely exciting.”