Australian and New Zealand public relations firm PPR has expanding leadership and expertise across the business with two senior hires.

Melissa Millard (pictured above) has been appointed as director of people and culture, and is based in PPR’s Sydney office, while Shaun Scanlan (pictured above) joins the firm as national social media manager, and will work primarily out of Melbourne.

During her 20-plus year career, Millard has had extensive experience managing and building large teams across geographies and disciplines, including a 10-year stint working out of London and Geneva.

She most recently worked in the non-profit sector at the McGrath Foundation, where she was the media and communications director.

Millard’s focus at PPR will be to ensure that the agency continues to have the best talent working in high-performance teams across our offices and leading our employee engagement programs.

Scanlan joins PPR from burger chain Grill’d, where he was content manager. Prior to this, he worked as content manager at the Movember Foundation and social media manager at Crown Resorts.

At PPR, Scanlan will focus on social media strategy, planning and management across the agency’s full client portfolio.

PPR chief executive Katrina Brangwin said the appointment of Millard and Scanlan were important for the firm.

“We have 47 years’ history in Australia and New Zealand providing a truly ANZ footprint to global and local brands who want to connect with their communities, wherever they may be,” she said.

“We do this through a highly experienced and connected team of consultants located in six cities across Australia and New Zealand.

“Bringing Melissa into this crucial role reaffirms our commitment to investing in our people and our ‘one team’ model, ensuring our clients have the best and most highly-engaged teams working on their business.

“Similarly, Shaun’s experience in content and social media planning bolsters our existing breadth of digital capability for our clients.”