UM Australia celebrated three major wins at this year’s Campaign Asia’s Agency of the Year Awards.

The agency took home Silver for Australian Media Agency of the Year.  In the People categories, UM Australia’s CEO, Mat Baxter was named Australia/New Zealand Agency Head of the Year and Tom Dispasia was selected as Australia/New Zealand Young Achiever of the Year.

UM Australia’s Silver title was due to its remarkable development in the past year. The agency was determined to change itself from a craft-centric company to a client-centric one, built around the needs of clients. UM Australia also stressed the importance of culture and staff motivation by implementing new reward and recognition programs. Training was another key area of focus in 2013. UM invested over $1million in learning and development programs this year.

The agency achieved over $193 million in new business and saw organic growth of 28 percent. On the awards front, UM Australia has been showered with over 15 major awards in the last 12 months alone!

Under Baxter’s leadership, UM has achieved an 80 percent conversion rate on new business pitches, winning new accounts such as News Corporation and NSW Government.  UM Australia also retained 100 percent of its clients, keeping its average client tenure at 10.6 years versus a market average of 3.5 years.

One of the youngest strategy directors at UM,  Tom Dispasia was named Australia/New Zealand Young Achiever of the Year. Since he joined UM, Tom has   played a critical role in new business wins, including the NSW government pitch which he co-led.

Dispasia also helped develop UM’s brand planning arm ‘Rare,’ creating brand strategy and identity for Jump-in, Mi9, Cudo and nexba. Each project requires intensive workshops, research and inspired creativity to carve out a defendable niche within highly competitive markets. He has also worked with clients such as Microsoft and Xbox, where he led the recent Xbox launch and assisted in the creation of an Xbox One racing team with a wildcard car entry at Bathurst 1000, a 1,000 kilometer touring car race held annually in New South Wales, Australia.

Dispasia is also a lecturer at the ‘Adschool’ program, where he  guides  young students through the media world.

Congratulations Australia!