Hardhat Welcomes Ken Chan as Head of Strategy

Independent creative agency Hardhat has appointed Ken Chan as head of strategy.

Ken has spent the last three years as head of strategy at VLMY&R Melbourne, where he built and led the strategy team across brand planning and CX, producing breakthrough work for clients including Monash University, Department of Transport, and Defence Force Recruiting.

Before VLMY&R Ken held senior roles across agency, management consulting and client-side, including Accenture and DT (now AKQA). 

Says Dan Monheit, co-founder at Hardhat: “Ken’s journey over the last 18 years has been an almost exact match with the agency’s. Like us, he cut his teeth in the early days of digital, social and content, before evolving his skill set to add brand and comms planning to the mix. As soon as we met, we knew Ken was ‘our people’ and the right guy to continue driving growth for our clients, our team and the agency as a whole.’

Says Ken Chan, head of dtrategy at Hardhat: “The opportunity to work with a strategically-minded and creatively-ambitious agency like Hardhat was a big draw. Plus, they’re all super nice, which is handy. Our industry is evolving quickly and I’m impressed at how adaptable and agile Hardhat’s been to respond to market forces and client needs to produce great work. I’m looking forward to using my random collection of skills and experiences to continue kicking goals with the team.”

Hardhat was founded in 2005 by Dan Monheit and Justin Kabbani. The agency, now a team approaching 50, builds brands through a combination of creativity and behavioural insights. Hardhat clients include DocuSign, Superhero, Bega Dairy and Drinks, Victoria University, Steggles, Lilydale and Simply Energy.