Sophie Price Leaves Hallway To Be UM’s Chief Strategy Officer

Sophie Price, head of planning at independent ad agency, The Hallway will soon kick off her new year with a new gig.

Price confirmed to B&T she’ll be starting a new role as chief strategy officer for media agency UM at the end of January.

Price, who has directed planning at creative agencies including The Campaign Palace, The Monkeys and most recently The Hallway, joins UM on January 19 and will report to CEO Mat Baxter. This will be her second national role with UM, having left the agency as national strategy director in 2007 to pursue her career with creative agencies.

Price has led strategy for some of Australia’s most famous and effective campaigns in recent years. She was the planning partner for Happy Soldiers, the agency that developed the celebrated Tontine ‘date stamp’ campaign in 2010 and 2011. The work won Grand Prix awards from the Australian Effies and the Media Federation of Australia (MFA), two further Gold Effies, three categories at the MFA Awards, as well as silver and bronze awards from the Cannes Lions.

Her work has also helped win two Gold Effies in 2009 for Berlei bras, as well as Best Integrated Campaign and Best of Category awards from the MFA in 2008. In 2007 her work on Westpac won the MFA’s Grand Prix, Best Integrated Campaign and the Best Campaign in Finance Category.

“I left UM in 2007 to pursue a plan to apply my media skills and experience to the creative side of the business,” said Price. “Now I am going back to the future to bring my creative experience and love of the media sector together in the role at UM. The agency has been the stand out performer in Australia and internationally and the chance to work with Mat and his leadership team is simply an opportunity that I cannot resist.”

Baxter said Price’s credentials made her a rare and world-class strategic thinker. “Clearly Sophie’s achievements speak for themselves.” He added: “This appointment is particularly special because we are welcoming Soph back to UM where she started her career in Australia but this time round she’s in-charge and we’ll benefit from her product leadership enormously.”

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