LONDON – B2B specialist agency Octopus Group has hired a new strategy director and made a raft of promotions to its senior management team.
Chris Ashley-Manns (pictured, top left) joins Octopus from B2B website personalization platform Webeo, where he is chief marketing officer. He was previously the director of marketing agency Really B2B for 12 years.
Ashley-Manns replaces Tom Upfold, who moved in-house to the digital workflow platform ServiceNow as chief experience officer.
In her new role, Ashley-Manns was tasked with building the agency’s strategy services, particularly in the fast-growing Account Based Marketing (ABM) component. He reports to Octopus co-founder and chief strategy officer Billy-Hamilton-Stent.
At the same time, Toby Brown (pictured, middle part), a client director who runs Octopus ’fintech and sustainability teams, was promoted as head of PR and will oversee all aspects of training operations, who there is a study of change.
Natasha Szczerb (top right), also a client director, is promoted as head of client strategy, and Kirstie Orpen (bottom right) is promoted as client director and will run several services teams in marketing. Board director and performance marketing director Nicola Pestell (bottom left) will take on the new role of growth director, focusing on high -growth specialist services such as media, digital build and martech, and overseeing the management program in the management of the Octopus.
Finally, client director Lisa Barber (center above) became head of client operations and will oversee an update of Octopus ’client processes and systems to improve efficiency, including implementing a new agency management system.
The steps follow Octopus Group’s acquisition of Publicis in February last year. Octopus managing director Pete Hendrick said the agency’s revenue will increase by 30% in 2021, boosted by account wins across the technology, energy, financial services and industrial B2B sectors, and restructuring senior team to support further growth in 2022.
He said: “2021 has been a great year, fueled by the Octopus side joining Publicis Groupe to increase its B2B offering. We have grown significantly and we have a great senior management team, but it became clear in our planning when 2022 that in order to continue to grow as an agency, we need to realign our management to directly support our strategic growth drivers.We regularly review our succession plan and we would love to see people progress in the ranks, so it was an exciting time for us.