Melissa Venter departs Colenso BBDO for director of operations role at Special

Special has appointed Melissa Venter as the director of operations for its New Zealand offices, overseeing the integration of the leading creative company’s unique range of capabilities.

Venter brings 16 years of experience agency-side, locally and overseas in London, in various roles across project management, production and operations at globally recognised agencies.

Venter joins from Colenso BBDO, where she was initially delivery director for Spark NZ before moving into a creative operations manager role in 2020. In this role, she spearheaded the systems and ways of working for the creative and design department, from a commercial, workflow and well-being perspective.

As director of operations at Special, she will assume the responsibility of helping optimise and operationalise the integrated work between its communication, design, digital and PR departments and its diverse range of clients across the Auckland and Wellington offices.

Says Tony Bradbourne, founder, Special: “We are always looking for ways big and small to improve. Mel’s experience and insights will undoubtedly help us be even better at that as we continue to grow across our two New Zealand offices, Auckland and Wellington, with our global team of 260.”

Says Venter: “Special is 100% true to its name, and I’m excited to get under the hood to help evolve the agency’s offering to support the needs of our clients, match the unyielding creative ambition, and support this talented bunch of people.”

Venter’s appointment follows a year of huge success for Special, which was recently named Global Creative Agency of the Year for the second consecutively by Campaign UK and named as New Zealand’s Most Effective Agency at the NZ Effies Awards as well as being ranked Most Effective Independent Agency in the World by the Effie Global Rankings.