Most CFOs treat brand as a marketing cost. They're wrong by a multiple.
The strongest brands trade at a premium that the operational gap can't explain. That premium compounds into enterprise value, pricing power, lower CAC, and higher retention. It shows up on the P&L whether or not finance teams account for it.
Twenty-five years of building agencies has taught me one thing: the businesses that treat brand as a financial asset outperform the ones that treat it as a line item. Not by a little. By an order of magnitude over a decade.
About
Twenty-five years building things that connect.
Trained economist. Ended up in advertising. That combination shapes everything — brands as economic assets, creative as a behaviour system, data as the closed loop that tells you if either is working.
I've spent 25 years building agencies, brands, teams and the people who run them. The work is interesting. The people are the point.
Clemenger Proximity, BMF, Y&R Brands, Wunderman. Then Downstream Marketing with Steve Knowles — acquired by Adobe in 2011. Then WiTH Collective with Dominique — built from zero to almost 150 people across Sydney and Auckland, one of the best things I've been part of. Acquired by Dentsu in 2016, exited 2019. Then CHEP Network as CEO and Clemenger Group board director — leading a team of almost 400 people, some of the best minds in the business and a genuine privilege. Left in 2023.
Then started again. Reunion launched in June 2023 on a single conviction: the industry spent two decades pulling brand, data, creative and experience apart. The next generation of value sits in connecting them back together. We call it Connected Thinking.
CEO, Reunion Agency · Economist by training. Operator by practice.
25
Years compounding the same bet
4
Agencies built
2
Successful exits
What drives me
The Thinking
What I believe.
Systems over campaigns.
A campaign ends. A brand operating system compounds. The interesting work is in the system, not the asset.
Connected intelligence.
Brand, data, creative and experience are one closed loop. Pulling them apart is the single biggest mistake the industry made in the last twenty years.
Economic rigour.
Brands are economic insulation. They affect pricing power, P/E multiples, customer acquisition cost, and retention. Treat them as financial assets, not marketing line items.
Culture is the operating system.
The work follows the people. Build the team, build the trust, build the culture — and the commercial outcomes compound on their own.
Balance is non-negotiable.
Sustainable performance comes from people who have lives. Burnout is a strategy tax. I've run agencies through both modes and the second one wins every time.
Independence.
I've built four agencies and exited two. I back the idea over the institution every time.
Disruption that endures.
New thinking is easy. New thinking that compounds for a decade is the actual work.
Career
Twenty-five years. Five chapters.
2000–2007
The network years
BMF, Y&R Brands, Wunderman, Clemenger Proximity. Learning how scaled creative and media worked at the largest agencies in the market.
2007–2011
Downstream Marketing
Joined Steve Knowles to build a performance-first agency that put data at the centre of creative. Acquired by Adobe in 2011 — one of the first Australian agency acquisitions by a global tech platform.
2010–2019
WiTH Collective
Co-founded with Dominique Hind. Built from zero to almost 150 people across Sydney and Auckland — an absolute career high point. One of Australia's most awarded digital and creative agencies. Acquired by Dentsu Aegis Network in 2016. Exited 2019.
2021–2023
CHEP Network
CEO. Board Director, Clemenger Group / BBDO Worldwide. Led a team of almost 400 people — some of the best minds in the business and a privilege to work alongside every one of them. Record revenue and record profit. The bet was that a network agency could behave like an independent if you ran it that way. It could. Left in 2023 to prove a bigger version of the same idea.
2023 → Now
Reunion Agency
CEO and co-founder with Dominique. A Sydney strategic and creative studio built on Connected Thinking — connecting brand, data, creative and experience into one system. The bet is that the next generation of brand value sits in the connections, not the components.
Experience
Twenty-five years across almost every category.
From ASX 50 to early-stage startups, B2C to B2B, brand to performance. Across four agencies, almost every category that matters in Australian business.
Telecommunications & Technology
Telstra · Optus · Microsoft · IBM · Cisco · Samsung · Xbox · Meta · Facebook · Google
Financial Services
Commonwealth Bank · Colonial First State · Macquarie Bank · AMP · ASB Bank · Citi · Suncorp · IAG / NRMA · REST Super
Automotive
BMW · Ford · Hyundai · Mazda · Subaru · Mini
Media & Publishing
News Ltd · Fairfax · The Sydney Morning Herald · The Australian Financial Review · Foxtel · Nine
Health & Pharmaceutical
Pfizer · Blackmores · JS Health
Travel, Retail & Education
Qantas · Qantas Frequent Flyer · Cadbury · RedBalloon · Western Sydney University · UNSW
The disciplines: brand strategy, integrated creative, performance media, CRM and lifecycle, customer experience, digital product, data and measurement.
Published Thinking
How I think, in my own words.
The work
Reunion Agency. Connected thinking.
A Sydney strategic and creative studio connecting brand, data, creative and experience into one system. Founded 2023. Built on Connected Thinking — the conviction that the next generation of brand value sits in the connections, not the components.
What we do
Strategy · Brand · Creative · Media · Data · Technology
How we work
Data-led. Audience-first. Independent. Integrated. Focused on commercial outcomes, not just creative output.
Who we work with
Ambitious brands who want to make their brand more valuable and more engaged with their customers.
"The most exciting times across my career have been building things that didn't exist before — and finding out what they could become."
— Justin Hind, AdNews June 2023
Three or four conversations a year.
I take a small number of advisory, board and NED conversations alongside Reunion each year. Three or four, sometimes five. I've worked with PE and VC as both backer and operator, and I know what good looks like across the growth curve.
I'm interested in founders building defensible categories. Operators translating brand into enterprise value. Investors who want someone who's actually sat in the seat.
If that's you, get in touch. If you're looking for an agency, Reunion is the better door.