Atomic 212° Adds Seven Leaders After RECMA Tops 27% Growth

Atomic 212° grew 27% in 2025, and RECMA (a Paris-based consultancy that benchmarks media agencies) now ranks it Australia's fastest-growing media agency. That number explains the seven leadership hires the agency announced this week across Brisbane, Darwin, Adelaide and Sydney.

The hires span client service, digital and agency management. Most are newly created roles. That's the detail worth watching: new roles mean new headcount, not backfilling departures — at least for four of the seven.

Who got which job?

• Molly Lodge — Head of Client Service, Adelaide. A new role, created on the back of recent new business wins, the agency said.
• Tess Brandenburg — Head of Client Service, covering Brisbane and Darwin. Also newly created. One hire spanning two cities suggests those markets stay lean.
• Sam Bremner — Digital Lead, NSW, based in Sydney. Another new position.
• Pete Roins — Sydney General Manager, on maternity cover. This one is temporary. Roins returns to Publicis Groupe (Atomic 212°'s parent company), having previously worked at Spark Foundry and Zenith in Australia.
• Jess Scott, Jodi Frazer and Mark Rowe — Group Account Directors, deepening the client leadership bench.

Note what the announcement doesn't say: no revenue figures, no headcount totals, no names of the new clients driving the growth. The 27% is a rate, not an amount. A small agency growing fast can outpace a large one in percentage terms while adding less actual fee income, and RECMA's own framing — "strongest rise among agencies of comparable size" — concedes the comparison is relative.

What does the CEO claim?

CEO Rory Heffernan framed the hires as investment, not just expansion. He said: "It's great to see our teams expanding. We've built real momentum across the business, driven by the trust of our clients, new business wins and the strength of our people. As we grow, it's important that we continue to invest in talent that will create the leadership platform and capability our people and clients need."

He added: "Tess, Molly, Sam and Pete bring deep experience to key areas of our business and enhance our offering across the country. Their appointments put us in a great position to build on the momentum we've created and continue delivering for our clients."

Standard agency-growth language, in other words. "Momentum" appears twice. The test comes later: whether the new structure holds when the maternity cover ends and whether Adelaide, Brisbane and Darwin generate enough volume to justify dedicated client-service heads.

Why it matters for the market

For a mid-sized Australian media agency, adding regional leadership roles signals where the revenue is moving — out of the two-city Sydney-Melbourne duopoly and into smaller state capitals. Atomic 212° is betting Adelaide, Brisbane and Darwin each need their own client-service leadership rather than flying people in.

The agency did not disclose which accounts triggered the expansion. Until it does, the 27% remains the only hard number in the story. It's a strong number. It's also the only one on the table.