Boag adds brand to career collection

PR maven and former National party president Michelle Boag has opted for a career change, this time to advertising.

Ms Boag has been appointed executive director at Parnell-based advertising agency Ogilvy.

The role is a newly created one for Ogilvy, although several similar senior roles have existed at the agency in the past.

Ogilvy managing director Greg Partington said the appointment is intended to strengthen the agency’s growth in 2011.

Mr Partington said the agency performed “far beyond” his expectations in 2010 in spite of a disappointing economy, with profit up 24% year on year, while revenues increased slightly.

The profit increase is perhaps partly due to the agency’s pay cuts during the recession, which it opted for in a bid to avoid mass redundancies.

“2011 for Ogilvy is about growth,” Mr Partington said.

“Our plan for 2011 is to leverage the diverse strength of Ogilvy to the benefit of our existing clients as well as attracting new ones.

“We’ve appointed Michelle for just this purpose – to spearhead our business development fully utilising her well-developed network to provide our clients with strategic advice, helping them identify sales growth opportunities, and using marketing innovation to deliver them real results.”

Ms Boag will also provide support to Ogilvy’s recent addition, Bullet PR, which the agency bought late last year for an undisclosed sum.

Mr Partington said Ms Boag’s “well-known ability to cut to the chase” will be invaluable to him in harnessing the agency’s business potential.

Ms Boag told the National Business Review that Ogilvy’s client portfolio coupled with Mr Partington’s business ethic were the chief pulling points for her to accept the position.

“There’s immense scope to provide some value-add to Ogilvy that will add value to the clients,” she said.

After selling her specialist recruitment company PR People to Momentum in 2008, Ms Boag was on a staged earn-out that ended “some time ago” although she remained with Momentum as a senior consultant.

“I had to work quite hard on that because I sold my company a month before the recession hit, so I made all my projections on pre-recession conditions.

“It was more about what I wanted to do in the future and the sort of work I enjoy doing.

“Greg is an interesting personality on the New Zealand advertising scene. He’s been hugely successful and I admire the way he works. I like that he calls a spade a spade and we speak the same language.”

Ms Boag starts next month.