Months after adobo reported his resignation from Jakarta’s PT Smart Telecom, Boy Martires starts work today as CEO of Liberty Telecom. Now being formalized as a joint venture between San Miguel and Qatar’s QTel, Liberty owns valuable broadband frequencies which other telcos have been trying to buy for some time.
Knowing how Martires prefers to work with trusted lieutenants, one can expect a ripple of changes among telco agencies and their teams. DDB, DM9 and DraftFCB have all worked on SMART; will any of them drop existing business for their old client’s very big new account? Or will it be a smaller agency happy to transform itself for the huge billings the account should bring? Either way, they’ll need people. Enterprising industry people with telco experience – suit or creative, freelance or not — should be updating their resumes and storing up sleep while they can.
The other point of speculation is Client side. Liberty is apparently courting senior executives from the other telco firms. But consumer and bank marketing could also provide plenty of candidates.
From a creative point of view, one awaits various puns on freedom, which is ironic considering how working for Martires’ brands is known to quite the opposite. But with today’s business environment and the handsomer-than-Brad compensation at stake, there will be no shortage of takers.
