Ex McCann Hong Kong MD Vince Viola named chief growth officer at McCann Australia

It has been announced that Vince Viola, who left his role as managing director/EVP of McCann Hong Kong to return to Australia, is to fill the newly appointed role of chief growth officer at McCann Australia.

In October last year McCann announced that Viola was returning to Australia and would be based out of their Melbourne agency.

Says McCann Worldgroup chairman and CEO, Ben Lilley: “We are delighted to be welcoming back a management professional of Vince’s calibre, to lead what will be a major new business push for McCann’s national operations this year. 2013 was a strong new business year for McCann, winning key new clients like Google, Bendigo Bank, Lion and government projects.

Viola (pictured above left with Lilley) is McCann Worldgroup’s second key senior management appointment in just over a month, with the announcement in December of McCann’s poaching of Wunderman’s national head of digital Brent Clarke’s to head up its data, CRM and digital offering MRM Australia as Managing Director.

Viola began his career in Melbourne at George Patterson, working on Nissan Motors, then in Sydney with Saatchi & Saatchi on accounts including Toyota, Commonwealth Bank and Helene Curtis, then McCann where he managed accounts including Johnson & Johnson, Cathay Pacific and Lever Rexona. He spent several years in New York, first at Ogilvy & Mather as Senior Partner heading up Kraft Foods’ Maxwell House account. Then as SVP/Director Business Development at D’Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, New York, as well as managing a portfolio of Procter & Gamble brands for the US market.

He returns from more than a decade with McCann Hong Kong where he managed the Cathay Pacific Central Team, a dedicated agency managing all integrated marketing for Cathay Pacific Airways globally across 27 markets. During his time in Hong Kong, Viola also managed McCann’s Asia Pacific multinational account hub with clients including Coca-Cola, Marriott Hotels and Microsoft, and was Regional Director for Momentum, McCann’s brand activation agency.