MEC names Verra Budimlija Head of Strategy

MEC, today announced three new senior strategic planning hires in the UK.

Verra Budimlija joins as Head of Strategy reporting to Stuart Sullivan-Martin, Chief Strategy Officer.  Verra was formerly Head of Strategic Planning at Joshua G2.  She brings a range of experience having worked with brands including GSK, Scottish and Newcastle, Unilver, Nike, TfL and Sainsburys.  Prior to her role at G2 Joshua, Verra was Head of Planning at Nitro London, Group Planning Director at M&C Saatchi and the former Head of Planning at Leo Burnett Thailand.   Verra will work closely with Ian Edwards (Strategy Director) and the Strategy team, MEC Interaction and MEC Access to drive integrated planning at MEC.

Rachel Levy joins as a Strategist.  Formerly Innovation Consultant at Fujitsu, and Strategic Planning Manager at the Capital Radio Group, Rachel joins the team working with MEC clients including Morrisons, Danone and assignments for the Department of Health / COI.

John Tippins joins as Strategist from Zenith Optimedia and will work on brands including Sony Ericsson and Orange.  John was previously a Senior Researcher at Shine, Elizabeth Murdoch's programming and content agency, and a Business Communications Analyst at Merrill Lynch Europe.

These new appointments augment MEC's Strategy unit, creating a seven strong team alongside Ian Edwards, John Paul Cadman (both Strategy Directors) and Chetan Murthy (Strategist).

Stuart Sullivan-Martin, MEC's CSO commented: 'We have an innovation and ideas culture at MEC and our Strategy team has played an important part in our success over the last three years.  But we want to move the game on again.  Verra brings a new perspective to the agency, helping us to drive channel, content and data thinking even closer together.  With Rachel and John we also add client marketing, media owner planning and programming commissioning experience to the mix.  It's an ambitious and exciting team with the brief to create bigger ideas and more effective work for our clients.'