Oliver’s CE for Middle East & Africa Paul van den Berg says that three key role appointments have been implemented for the Middle East and Africa regions to ensure the agency’s growth trajectory continues and to deliver on the work that optimises the agency’s client brands with the innovative in-house digital agency model.
Oliver was established globally in 2004 and now has a presence in over 46 countries. It is the world’s first company to exclusively design, build and run bespoke in-house agencies and marketing ecosystems for brands. Oliver SA was established in 2017.
“The appointments have come at a time when we have seen impressive growth over the past four years,” says van den Berg. “In just four years the Oliver Africa business has grown into a R250m business with 200 regional staff.”
Key Oliver appointments include Nonhlanhla Koza, who has been appointed as the executive director of Africa and Colin Herholdt as operations director for Africa & Middle East and Theo Spencer who has been promoted to managing partner for UStudio Africa.
“As the world’s first and only company to exclusively design, build and run bespoke in-house agency and marketing ecosystems for brands, these brands need a great team, one that is firmly entrenched as part of clients brand teams,” says van den Berg.
“Amongst our shared values we also have a genuine sense of belonging as our people are at the core of these shared values who strive to always solve any problem a client throws at them,” he adds. “In 46 countries across hundreds of sites our thousands of staff members are building brands across the globe. The team continuously expands on a weekly basis and we proudly attract nothing but the very best talent.”
Van Den Berg adds: “The Oliver team are encouraged to have strong voices and opinions and an integral part of our DNA is trust, respect and total belief in our staff.”
“We’re all in, for each other, the work and our clients,” he says. “They’re a special breed who aren’t scared to learn, step in and take the lead, even if they’ve never done it before. They call a spade a spade, question most things, hold one another accountable and are hugely adaptable.”
“Our team make us who we are, which is why we offer an attractive range of perks for everyone who works for us. We constantly look for people who are entrepreneurial, ambitious and willing to take on any challenge – people who are ‘all in’.”
He adds that it’s these people that deliver purposeful and beautiful work for some of the world’s best-loved brands – it’s what makes us Oliver. “We enable clients to have an agile, highly effective and totally consistent experience across their brand ecosystems and the Oliver people are the one’s making it happen.”
The new appointments:
Nonhlanhla Koza - Executive director of Oliver Africa
Nonhlanhla is an experienced marketing executive, she has over 15 experience building brands for blue chip companies in both the public and private sectors. She joined Oliver in 2017 to head up business development and will continue to focus on strategic partnerships that will drive growth for the Group. She has worked extensively on the African continent as well as globally for multinationals with an African presence like Mnet, Coca-Cola, Cell C and SAA to name a few.
Colin Herholdt – Operations director for Oliver Africa & Middle East
Colin’s journey in marketing began in brand management roles for Panasonic and Sony over 16 years ago. He then joined Saatchi & Saatchi (Publicis Groupe) which is where he stayed for over a decade. From group account director to business leader, client service and operations director to managing partner, his experience delivering excellent global work for some of the top brands then lead him to his new role managing operations for Oliver.
Theo Spencer - Managing partner for UStudio Africa
Theo is an industry veteran, with more than a decade of experience working with top local and global brands. He has been promoted in just two years from his role as new business director to managing partner of UStudio. Prior to joining Oliver, Theo worked at Digitas Liquorice and Ogilvy & Mather South Africa.
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