{"id":529860,"date":"2026-07-17T00:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/529860\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T00:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:25:15","slug":"eightyone-appoints-tom-sykes-as-executive-strategy-director-campaign-brief-nz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/529860\/","title":{"rendered":"EightyOne appoints Tom Sykes as Executive Strategy Director \u2013 Campaign Brief NZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t July 17 2026, 11:51 am | BY Ricki Green | No Comments<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"EightyOne<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t \tIndependent creative agency EightyOne has appointed Tom Sykes as Executive Strategy Director, adding significant strategic experience to the agency\u2019s senior leadership team.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sykes has spent more than two decades helping shape strategy for many of New Zealand\u2019s best-known and most admired brands. He brings deep experience across brand, customer and business strategy, along with a reputation for combining commercial clarity with creative ambition.<\/p>\n

Sykes joins EightyOne from Principals, where he spent three years as Strategy Director leading brand strategy across New Zealand, driving major branding and employer branding projects for clients including Fonterra, Chorus, Oceania Healthcare, Southern Cross Healthcare and BNZ. Prior to that, he was Head of Strategy at Droga5 ANZ (formerly The Monkeys Aotearoa), where he co-created the agency\u2019s strategy department and led work for clients including ASB, Meridian and Fletcher. He has also held senior strategy roles at McCann NZ (formerly DDB NZ) and Saatchi & Saatchi. Sykes began his career in South Africa, holding digital and social strategy roles across several Cape Town agencies including King James and M&C Saatchi Abel.<\/p>\n

EightyOne Executive Creative Director and co-founder Chris Bleackley said the appointment reflects the agency\u2019s ambition to bring together the strongest strategic and creative thinking possible: \u201cTom is one of those rare strategists who combines experience with curiosity, commercial thinking with creativity, and intelligence with humility.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has helped shape some of New Zealand\u2019s most successful brands, but what excites us most is the way he thinks. He asks better questions, gets to the heart of a business problem and understands how strategy can unlock more ambitious creative work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sykes will work alongside EightyOne\u2019s existing strategy and creative leadership team, partnering with clients across brand, communications and business challenges.<\/p>\n

Bleackley said the appointment comes at an important stage in the agency\u2019s development: \u201cWe\u2019ve spent the past year building stronger foundations for the next phase of EightyOne. Tom\u2019s appointment is a big part of that. Our ambition is simple: to do work that has a genuine impact on our clients\u2019 businesses and earns a place in culture. Great creativity needs great strategy behind it, and Tom adds even more weight to that belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appointment further strengthens EightyOne\u2019s senior capability as the independent agency continues to grow its client portfolio and invest across strategy, creative and client service.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Subscribe to Portfolio & Reel<\/a> for current listings of Australian and NZ ad agency and production company leadership and key personnel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 17 2026, 11:51 am | BY Ricki Green | No Comments Independent creative agency EightyOne has appointed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-529860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}