Australian expat Matt Eastwood is to depart his New York-based role as global chief creative officer for McCann Health, media reports suggest.
Eastwood has been in the role for three years and, prior to that, was worldwide chief creative officer of J. Walter Thompson.
Industry site Campaign Brief Asia is reporting Eastwood’s departure, however, his next move remains unclear and there is no mention of a possible or imminent return to Australia.
Prior to his roles at McCann Health and JWT, Eastwood was CCO at DDB New York, CCO at Y&R New York and ECD at M&C Saatchi London. He began his career as a copywriter at DDB Sydney in 1992.
Last week Eastwood gave an interview to industry site Muse by Clio where he revealed he “grew up in Perth in Western Australia, which is recognised as one of the most isolated cities in the world. Now I’m based in New York. I normally live in Manhattan but moved upstate to our house on Copake Lake at the start of the pandemic.”
On his move into the healthcare side of the business, Eastwood said: “Although I’ve spent most of my career in consumer advertising, I’d been working on the edges of healthcare for years. During my time at JWT, I worked on a project for Northwell Health (the largest hospital group in the Northeast) called “The Fin.” We created an amphibious prosthetic leg for a veteran. Seeing the life-changing impact it had on him really drew me towards doing more work in the healthcare space. So, when the CEO of McCann Health approached me to take on the global CCO role, I decided to take a chance and leap into the unknown.”
