Anathea Ruys is the new CEO of UM Australia

The new CEO of UM Australia is Anathea Ruys, who is returning home after a strong run in the United States with Dentsu. She starts work at UM in April and replaces Fiona Johnston, who was promoted to an international role as chief growth officer, Mediabrands, Global/EMEA. Ruys is currently executive vice president and managing director of Carat West Coast and Mid-West USA, as well as the lead of Dentsu’s West Coast office.

Ruys has been in her Carat and Dentsu roles for the past four years. During that time she led business development resulting in $300 million in new revenue in her first two years, was responsible for driving alignment and collaboration across multiple specialist teams.

Prior to her Carat and Dentsu leadership, Ruys was based in Singapore as head of Fuse APAC, an Omnicom Media Group strategy, content and activation division, where she was also a member of the OMG APAC executive committee. She expanded Fuse’s network coverage to an additional four countries and established media partnerships across the region.

Ruys was managing director of Mindshare Melbourne from 2012 to 2014, previously managing director of Clemenger Harvie Edge and before that managing director of Spark PR Group.

“Anathea was a stand-out media leader before leaving Australia to pursue her international career," said Mark Coad, CEO of Mediabrands Australia, in a statement. "Since then she has become a world-class talent in building collaborative, performance work cultures as well as business and team partnerships." 

Eileen Kiernan, global CEO of UM added that Ruys was a good fit to become UM's CEO because she had "a proven track record of leading a winning culture." 

Rys, meanwhile said she UM had set the industry benchmark for industry performance and leadership and innovation. " I am excited by the opportunity to join this talented team and to partner with the very impressive roster of clients to help drive their business growth.”