Kate O’Ryan-Roeder is reshaping Havas Media around less friction and bigger impact

Kate O’Ryan-Roeder’s first months at Havas Media have been shaped by a simple idea: clients want more capability from agencies, but less friction getting access to it.

Since joining as CEO in October after 18 years at Mindshare, O’Ryan-Roeder has been working through how Havas Media should respond to that shift. The answer is not to strip back the agency’s offer, but to make its strategy, media, data, production, social and broader group capability easier to connect around client problems.

That thinking sits behind “outsized impact”, Havas Media’s three-year operating idea and its translation of Havas Group’s “deliberately different” positioning into the media business.

The ambition is to move beyond media metrics alone and connect the agency’s work more directly to business growth and marketing’s contribution at board level.

“It’s not outsized impact in terms of just delivering media metrics in an outsized way,” O’Ryan-Roeder said. “It’s about business growth – being able to speak the language of the board and show how marketing’s contribution has pushed the needle.”

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Her arrival comes at a volatile time for the agency market. Holding companies are simplifying structures, consolidating capabilities and searching for efficiencies, while clients are under pressure to prove value from marketing investment more clearly.

O’Ryan-Roeder said clients are not asking agencies to become simpler because they need less expertise. They still need deep capability across media, data, strategy, social and production, but they expect those parts to work together without friction.

“They don’t want less sophistication,” she said. “They want less friction.”

For Havas, that means building a model where clients can access deeper capability without having to navigate heavy agency plumbing.

“They still need the depth of capabilities, probably now more than ever before, but they want it connected in a seamless way that’s really simple to navigate,” O’Ryan-Roeder said.

A key part of that model is Havas Group’s emerging strategic collective.

Led by Olly Taylor, who was appointed chief strategy officer earlier this year, the collective brings together strategists from media, creative, PR and public affairs, creating a shared strategy hub across the group rather than keeping thinking locked inside individual agency walls.

O’Ryan-Roeder said it is one of the clearest examples of how Havas is trying to make its “village” model work in practice, putting different disciplines around the same table to solve client problems.

“Bringing those disciplines together gives us more diversity of thinking and better work for clients,” O’Ryan-Roeder said.

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James Wright, CEO of Havas Group ANZ, said the collective is designed to make strategy more accessible across the group.

“It’s a strategy hub that every agency in the group can access,” Wright said.

“As things continue to merge in terms of how media and creative are working together, the younger people coming in are actually getting to future-proof their roles, because they can understand both media strategy and creative strategy together.

“From a client perspective, if you can see both sides of that already, you’re two or three steps ahead.”

Wright said the strategy hub is also a way to shift the group away from protectionism and toward a more open model of problem solving.

He sees that as especially important as automation starts to change junior roles and agencies are forced to decide where they place future investment.

The secret sauce for a brand is strategy and ideas, and as automation continues, that’s where we will be making our investments.

“Strategy is the bedrock for finding the intelligence that creates great ideas and moves brands. Sophisticated strategy, simple solutions.”

O’Ryan-Roeder’s first months have involved what she describes as a listening tour across Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, getting to know the teams, capabilities and connection points across the group.

“The biggest thing for me when I came in was listening,” she said. “Getting to know the teams, but also the capabilities. It’s a really diverse capability set, really great depth of capabilities, but quite diverse. So actually, how do we unify that around the shared ambition and goal?”

That work has now been shaped into a three-year roadmap for Havas Media, tied to the broader Havas Group ANZ strategy.

O’Ryan-Roeder said her years at Mindshare shaped her leadership style, particularly across global and local roles, but Havas presented a different kind of challenge: interpreting a group-level positioning for a media network with its own capabilities, client needs and talent base.

More than a job title

“The biggest thing that I was looking for in my next role was an organisation that had a broader aperture,” she said. “It wasn’t just about chasing a title. It was about an aperture, a scope, and the ability to work in an organisation that was deliberately different by design.”

She said values alignment was central to the move.

“I’m about culture and collaboration and camaraderie,” she said. “Everyone just comes together. We’re here for a common ambition, no egos.”

Wright said that culture fit is deliberate, particularly in senior appointments and acquisitions.

“Not bringing people just who might be the best in the actual role, but the best for what we need in the type of role we want to create,” he said.

Automation and AI now sit across that leadership agenda. O’Ryan-Roeder draws a clear line between the two. Automation, she said, is about reducing manual workload so people can spend more time on higher-value work. AI is broader, with the potential to enhance thinking and improve client outcomes.

“There’s automation, which for me is very different to AI, because automation is about how can we reduce some of the manual labour workload of our people to elevate the value of what they do, and more critical thinking,” she said.

“Then AI is where it gets really interesting, because that’s actually how we can enhance our thinking.”

She does not suggest agency structures will stay the same. The composition of agencies will change. But her view is that technology does not reduce the importance of people, judgement and relationships.

“It’s not about replacing people,” she said. “It’s how we can get smarter outcomes for our clients in the best way.”

That thinking shapes her view of the agency of the future. Technology may become table stakes, but strategic thinking remains the differentiator.

“What has remained the same is that strategic thinking is as important as it ever was before,” she said.

“At every juncture, what we do requires that layer of analytical thought, critical thinking. AI and automation will change the composition of the agencies, and that’s a great thing, but the opportunity then is, how can we elevate the value of what we do and our people do?”

The growth strategy follows the same logic. O’Ryan-Roeder said Havas Media wants to grow, but not by chasing every large account in market.

“Yes, we want to grow, and we want to scale,” she said. “We want to do it with the right partners who have the right mindset and have the right values as us.

It’s not about size of the prize. It’s about who we can do the most impactful work with and get the best business results.

Wright said Havas’ position in Australia gives the group room to move differently to larger competitors.

“We’re small enough, but big enough to be able to do a lot of things that others can’t do,” he said.

“We’ve got the investment, and 450 to 500 people in this market, so we’re big enough really to make a big impact, but we’re also small enough that we can do things quite differently.”

For O’Ryan-Roeder, the challenge now is to keep turning that flexibility into a clearer operating model for Havas Media. “Outsized impact” is the phrase, but the test is whether the agency can organise strategy, talent, technology and client relationships around work that carries beyond campaign metrics.

“The one thing that’s constant is that it’s always changing,” she said. “I know it’s on warp speed at the moment, that’s why I love it. It’s exciting, it’s dynamic and it is always changing. If you’re not up for that roller coaster ride, then it’s not the right industry for you.”