{"id":69109,"date":"2025-08-15T02:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T02:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69109\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T02:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T02:10:09","slug":"saatchi-saatchi-australia-cso-rachel-walker-steps-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69109\/","title":{"rendered":"Saatchi & Saatchi Australia CSO Rachel Walker Steps Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saatchi & Saatchi Australia\u2019s chief strategy officer, Rachel Walker<\/a>, has departed the role to return home to the UK.<\/p>\n

Rachel has been based in Australia since November 2022, when she joined VMLY&R (now VML) as head of strategy. She joined Saatchis in the CSO role in June 2024.<\/p>\n

She previously held global strategy director roles in London at Publicis and Grey, before spending almost five years at VCCP as head of planning, then executive global strategist.<\/p>\n

Sharing the news in a LinkedIn post, Rachel said she has moved back to London to be closer to her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia is a stunning place to live, and the experience has been one big adventure leading strategy on Australian Defence Force, Nescaf\u00e9, and Youfoodz by Hello Fresh, with some very talented agency and client teams,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve left behind an agency I will miss, who are on track for great things, including being a top three runner at this year\u2019s Australian Effies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn London I\u2019m diving back in — so if we haven\u2019t caught up in a while, give me a shout.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saatchi & Saatchi Australia chief executive officer Patrick Rowe<\/a> praised her impact on clients during her time at the agency.<\/p>\n

“We’d like to thank Rachel for her\u202fimmense contribution to Saatchi & Saatchi Australia during her time with us,\u201d Patrick told LBB.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer strategic expertise has had a significant impact on the agency and our clients. We wish Rachel all the best as she returns to the UK to be closer to her family.”\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n

Rachel\u2019s departure is the latest in multiple CSO shuffles in the past six months. Droga5 ANZ\u2019s Milla McPhee<\/a>will start as director of audiences at the ABC in September<\/a>, and Emotive\u2019s Michael Hogg<\/a>went to TBWA\\Sydney as CSO<\/a>, swapping places with Sebastian Revell<\/a>, who became top strategist at the Coogee-based indie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u200bLilian Sor<\/a> also took over as CSO of Howatson+Company<\/a> in July, filling the position vacated by Dom Hickey<\/a>, now CSO at Enigma<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saatchi & Saatchi Australia\u2019s chief strategy officer, Rachel Walker, has departed the role to return home to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,54735,54734,105],"class_list":["post-69109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-saatchi-saatchi-australia","tag-saatchi-saatchi-australia-cso-rachel-walker-steps-down","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}