Our People

Sarah Trombetta is Chief Executive Officer of Red Havas Australia, responsible for leading PR, social and experiential teams across the company’s offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

With almost 20 years PR & Advertising industry experience in Asia, Europe and Australia, Sarah leverages award-winning credentials and diverse communication experience building global brands – including P&G, HSBC, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Facebook, Ford and GSK – to continually innovate and integrate Red Havas’ specialist services at scale, including its Social and BLVD divisions with content and technology offerings.

Before joining Red Havas, Sarah was CEO at WPP’s advertising agency Grey Group Hong Kong. It was awarded Creative Agency of the Year under her leadership and innovated its end-to-end marketing services solutions for Greater China’s largest clients. Bringing social commerce, advertising, PR, retail and activation specialists together with data at its core, the agency earned industry recognition for winning an unfair share of cultural conversation and conversion to grow brands and white space launches.

Prior to that, Sarah held leadership roles at global public relations and integrated communications agency, H+K Strategies. She served as Marketing Communications Practice Director for Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong, elevating creative ambition and executional excellence for the region’s Top 20 clients and integrating the network’s crisis, corporate and social services to simplify solutions. Before that, Sarah was Board Director at H+K Strategies London leading the company’s fastest growing division with holistic award-winning campaigns, including P&G’s ‘Thank you Mom’ London 2012 Olympics Cannes Gold Integrated Lion winner.

With a firm eye on innovating for the future, Sarah is active within the local and international business community. Her relentless commitment to developing the next generation of leaders and creative ambition to collaborate with clients that push culture forward have shaped her contributions as Executive Committee Member of The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s Hong Kong), Executive Committee Member at Hong Kong Baptist University (Graduate Career Board) and member of The Marketing Society APAC.

Steve is the leading expert in the creation of insight-led experiential marketing, events and sponsorship campaigns. He’s tasked with leading brand experience campaigns at Red Havas and across Havas Australia.

Steve’s resume includes founding Chieftain Communications (acquired in 2014), leading the Australian office of Making Waves, as well as building DDB’s experiential marketing, sponsorship and events division, which grew significantly under his leadership.

His ongoing passion is to create campaigns that drive consumer engagement through memorable and authentic brand experiences. Steve frequently speaks at government and industry events and has been a judge at numerous industry awards.

Steve has created campaigns for leading brands, including Tigerair, Carnival Cruise Lines, Singapore Tourism Board, Hilton, Malaysia Trade Development Corporation, Toursim Whitsundays, AYAM (City of Sydney Chinese New Year 2017), Toyota, Lexus, Nestle, Telstra, Samsung, UBank, RACV, Coca-Cola, Sony, eBay, Real Insurance and Microsoft, to name a few.

B&T PR Woman of the Year 2015

Jackie Crossman is a distinguished member of the Australasian PR community by any measure – longevity, client acquisition and impact, industry service, peer recognition or awards success.

A Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) and frequent judge of PRIA’s Golden Target Awards and State Awards for Excellence and Mumbrella’s CommsCon Awards, Crossman is a corporate and marketing communications specialist with extensive experience and expertise in issues and crisis management, social media activation, event and sponsorship solutions and media strategy, relations and interview skills training.

Her early career was in radio and after a grounding in PR with global firm Burson-Marsteller, Crossman founded her own consultancy in New Zealand in 1988, a business that eventually became Porter Novelli New Zealand of which she was Managing Director.

Prior to forming Crossman Communications again in Australia in 2003, she was Executive Director of NISAD Schizophrenia Research based at the Garvan Institute in Sydney.

The creator of the long-running Weet-Bix Kids Tryathlon, National Vegetarian Week and ‘Thank You Day’ for Research Australia, Crossman has counseled many of Australia’s most successful companies and has won multiple PR awards at state, national, regional and global level. She is the current B&T PR Woman of the Year.

Crossman Communications merged with Red Agency at the beginning of January 2016, with Jackie taking on the role of Principal of the Sydney operation. She has extensive experience in the food and agricultural sectors and has worked with Horticulture Innovation Australia across multiple industries including Macadamias, Summer Stonefruit and Bananas for seven years.

With over 35 years of experience, Yasmine Gray is the consummate professional, bringing together a rare skill set of exceptional experience in the communications industry, spanning across media relations, social and digital, experiential, crisis management, media training and marketing, and has a genuine understanding of business in a wide range of industries.

After 15 years working as a journalist both in the UK and Australia across radio, TV, newspapers and magazines, Yasmine moved into public relations and in 2008 founded one of Brisbane’s most successful agencies, Graymedia, which she merged with the Havas Group in 2014.

Yasmine has won multiple national industry awards for her work which spans across a broad range of nationally and internationally recognised brands and a variety of industries such healthcare, sport, consumer, lifestyle, education, not-for-profit, technology, franchise, industry associations and tourism, to name but a few.

Highly regarded within the communications industry Yasmine is a Fellow and former board director and Queensland President of the PRIA, has held multiple board positions including with Baseball Australia, is a qualified member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, is a regular industry awards judge and prides herself on being a leader and mentor to all those around her.

She is proud to have had members of her team win national talent awards every year since building the Red Havas offering in Brisbane and actively works to improve industry standards by regularly supporting Queensland’s leading universities, and in 2015 was recognised for her work by being the first ever Queensland finalist in the national Women in Media Awards.

Kate joined Red Agency in early 2017 when her previous agency merged with Red.

She has over 15 years’ experience in the industry, starting in Experiential Marketing before moving to PR and Events.

She leads The Blvd, a Brand Experience agency with creative services in house, including Photographers, Designers, Video Producers, Event Managers, Digital services as well as traditional PR account service and speciality writers.

Kate’s passion lies in events, leading strategy and creative concepts to implement meaningful and successful National Media launches, Award Ceremonies, Roadshows, Sponsorship Activation, Conferences and Incentive Programs.

Kate believes that events are where brand communications should seamlessly combine to say something memorable and meaningful about the client’s product. Creativity, focus and exacting attention to detail are only the start. She goes further, with a holistic approach to event production, ensuring that everything your guests see, hear and experience contributes to the brand story you wish to tell.

Kate has created campaigns for leading brands including, Toyota, Lexus, Veritas, Symantec, Hino and the FCAI.

Grant is a former award-winning journalist and now highly experienced communications executive. He started his career at The Examiner in Launceston and had stints in London and Hong Kong, working with the South China Morning Post. He finished his career after nearly a decade at The Age newspaper in Melbourne where he held executive roles such as Chief Sub-Editor and Night Editor. This journalism background enables Grant to produce outstanding writing as well as being able to identify the appropriate news angle.

Since moving into communications firstly at Socom and now at Red Havas, he has built a reputation in the corporate sector and is highly regarded as a crisis and issues expert who is called on to resolve complicated and potentially explosive issues. He has won multiple public relations awards across event management, internal communications, mergers and acquisitions, comprehensive communications and crisis management.

He has also done significant work with all three levels of Government including major water projects, sustainability, disability and energy.

In recognition of this work in the industry, Grant is a Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia.

In August 2015 Grant moved to Red Agency as Associate Director in the Sydney office. In this role he has visibility across all client accounts, and is responsible for developing impactful communication strategies, senior level client council and ensuring effective delivery against KPIs across the board.

Grant has nine years’ experience as a communications professional starting his career with five years at Grayling in London. During his time with Grayling Grant developed from a junior to a strong Account Manager working mainly in the corporate blue chip space with clients such as HSBC, Santander UK, Jaguar Land Rover and Sony, the latter two delivering campaigns across five or more markets in Europe.

Following his time in London Grant moved to Doha to take up a position within the Communications Directorate at the Qatar Foundation. Grant’s role as PR Services Manager was to advise the 60 or so different entities within the Foundation on their PR strategies and campaigns, during this time he also worked with the team to develop the Foundation’s 2020 communications strategy.

Subsequently Grant moved to Dubai working for Ketchum as a Senior Account Director across a range of regional accounts from Maserati General Overseas Markets to Google MENA. After Ketchum he spent some time with Weber Shandwick as a consultant for their biggest client First Gulf Bank. His final role in the Middle East found Grant working in house within the strategy department at Intigral – the digital arm of Saudi Telecom Company.

Lauren is a communication professional with just over a decade’s experience in Australia, in-house and agency side, working across healthcare, financial services, regulation and the business sector.

She has rich experience in public relations, investor relations, issues management, content development and strategy, with a passion to drive best possible results, coupled with an excellent understanding of the Australian corporate and political landscape. This provides her the insight into the importance of extracting maximum value for investment.

Lauren specialises in crafting and delivering effective campaigns across multiple platforms, ensuring content is relevant, engaging and complementary, and meets business objectives.

At Red she is responsible for developing managing and leading national and local campaigns and projects, developing brand positioning in both B2B and B2C markets, managing issues and leading proactive media relations for her clients. In addition, she leads and manages the client servicing team in Melbourne, overseeing process and developing best practice in client servicing.

Clients include Toyota, Toyota Financial Services, the Australian Taxation Office, Sensis, PZ Cussons, St John Ambulance Victoria.

In 2017, Alex joined Red Agency as its first national Head of Strategy. Fascinated by culture and how it can engage and influence behaviour, Alex works with different client teams to ensure every idea is grounded in strong insights. He also plays a key role in the vision and positioning of the agency itself.

Alex has over a decade in marketing communications, having started his career in London at Brands2Life, one of the UK’s most award-winning consultancies. After learning the industry ropes, he made the move to New Zealand, where he worked on digital strategy for a wide range of projects from full social media campaigns and mobile app launches through to experiential marketing projects. He feels lucky to have worked on clients such as DHL (sponsorship of Rugby World Cup 2011), 2degrees Mobile (a new telco that he helped take from 0 to 11% market share in less than two years) and Contiki. Whilst in New Zealand, Alex also completed AWARD School, Australasia’s premier creative advertising course, to broaden his knowledge of other marcomms disciplines.

His next move was to Japan, where he established and ran the digital practice for Edelman, Campaign Asia’s 2012 Japanese Agency of the Year. Whilst there, Alex worked on pan-regional campaign for clients like HP and Hilton HHonors (Hilton Worldwide’s loyalty program). He was also the youngest member of the Edelman Japan management team.

Since 2013, Alex has been based in Sydney, including stints leading social strategy for Heineken’s global Open Your City campaign and setting up the native advertising offer at publisher, Bauer Media.

Alex takes a keen interest in developing the next generation of talent, running internal workshops and also teaching at AdSchool’s Strategic Planning course.

With more than 25 years’ experience counselling clients in Europe, Australia and across Asia Pacific, Sue has extensive expertise in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food and nutrition, corporate communications and crisis and issues management.

She has led communications programs to support health promotion; health policy change, market preparation, product launches and rescheduling for prescription and OTC pharmaceuticals, vaccines and health devices; product withdrawals and liability issues; crisis and issues management; and has provided stakeholder and health issues counsel for the food sector.  Recent consulting work for the pharma/ health sector has included a carers policy audit; communications and issues support for a leading fertility services group; and corporate communications for a leading pharmaceutical company on research partnerships and health system change.Previously Sue led the healthcare practice for an Australian/NZ consultancy working with clients including AbbVie, Amgen, Association for Safe Biologic Medicines, AstraZeneca, Creso Pharma, GSK, Hearing Care Industry Association, the Immunisation Coalition, Lilly and Seqirus.  Prior she was Managing Director, Healthcare at Hill+Knowlton Strategies London for more than two years providing senior counsel to clients such as Amgen, Shire, Gilead, Novartis, Lundbeck, Pfizer and Roche.  Previously she was H+K’s Asia Pacific Health Practice Director, providing strategic direction for health work in the region, overseeing pan Asian programs and leading on award winning pharma and biotechnology clients in Australia.

She served on the organising committee for the Australian Pharmaceutical Research, Innovation & Marketing Excellence Awards, and has been a judge for the Asia Pacific SABRE Awards and the local B&T Awards.

Sue began her career in journalism, and was the national medical writer on The Australian for four years and founding Vice President of the Australian Medical Writers’ Association. She is a graduate of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Diploma of Arts (Journalism).

Adam has a strong background working in consumer lifestyle, FMCG, youth, music and entertainment PR with a strong focus on social media.

Adam has developed and led programs for some of the biggest brands and organisations across ANZ and the globe. Client experiences includes Heineken, Coca-Cola, Mondelez International (including work with Cadbury and Philadelphia), Guinness World Records, Reckitt Benckiser (including work with Aerogard and Vanish NapiSan), VEVO, Guvera, Accor Hotels, Jack Daniel’s, Stayz and Jetts.

He has also worked on a number of campaigns which have received domestic and international acclaim. Highlights include a consumer campaign he developed for Cadbury in 2014, which included the creation of a world-first Facebook-powered vending machine, matching people to chocolate flavours, which generated widespread international coverage. He also worked on an award-winning campaign for Aerogard, developing the Mozzie Index, which predicts the intensity of mosquito activity based on environmental conditions. Adam also led the PR team in supporting HIV Testing Week for NSW Health which picked up two awards at the 2015 PRIA Golden Target Awards.

Adam previously spent four years at leading consumer PR agency House PR (formerly Henry’s House), responsible for delivering extensive media coverage across  a diverse client list from large domestic and global consumer brands to all major UK television broadcasters.

Clients included the BBC (including the BBC’s flagship music event the Electric Proms), Tourism New Zealand, the Discovery Channel, ITV (including American Idol), Channel 4 (including one of the UK’s biggest summer music events, T4 On The Beach), Save the Children, Bebo, AOL (including The Huffington Post) and Sailor Jerry rum (including celebrating the pioneering tattoo artist, Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins).

Patrick has extensive experience in public relations, marketing and journalism including 30 years across these disciplines in the automotive industry.

A media relations specialist and an accomplished writer, he develops, integrates and implements a broad range of corporate communication strategies designed to support the growth of client brand reputation and market position.

His automotive roles have included general manager of PR for Hyundai, Chrysler, Jeep and Audi (all concurrently), senior agency responsibilities for Toyota and Lexus and event management in South East Asia for Ford and Audi.

Beyond automotive, Patrick for many years reported federal and state politics and was central to the delivery of projects for prominent entities such as Visy Industries, Colliers Jardine, Business SA and the United Nations Environment Program.

His research, analytic and writing skills have contributed to the attainment of post-graduate qualifications in management and in teaching English to speakers of other languages.