Havas elevates Olly Taylor to expanded strategy role

Havas has shifted Olly Taylor to an expanded chief strategy officer role, part of a wider push across the ANZ group to unify creative and media strategy under its village model.

Taylor will lead integrated strategy across the group’s creative and media agencies, bringing together the full breadth of Havas’ strategic capability across Australia and New Zealand.

Taylor has spent more than a decade in senior leadership roles within Havas Australia.His work spans regional and global clients, with campaigns recognised at major international awards shows. He said the move reflects a shift in how strategy needs to operate as attention becomes harder to capture.

“Getting noticed is harder than it has ever been,” Taylor said. “Most messages disappear instantly, rendering the majority of them ineffectual. The real challenge is creating communication that captures attention and stays with people.”

He added that the opportunity to lead a genuinely integrated strategy function across creative and media remains rare in the industry.

The appointment supports Havas ANZ’s ‘Deliberately Different’ positioning, launched last year, and reinforces its Village model, which blends the agility of an independent agency with the scale and resources of a global network.

James Wright, group CEO of Havas ANZ, said Taylor’s expanded role reflects both his influence within the business and the group’s strategic direction.

“Olly is one of the region’s most respected strategic thinkers and has been instrumental in shaping how we think and work across the Village,” Wright said. “He deeply understands the challenge marketers face in a landscape of sameness and is uniquely placed to unify media and creative strategy into a deliberate, cohesive system.”