Mikaela Crimmins Promoted to Orchard Head of Strategy

Orchard, digital and tech creative agency, has promoted Mikaela Crimmins to head of strategy. Mikaela will head up the experience team, bringing together disciplines such as product, service design, data, branding, social and content - all aligned to a common purpose of inventing better brand experiences.

Mikaela has been in the communications industry for over 10 years, crafting global and national strategies for healthcare (GSK, Pfizer, RACGP), FMCG (Coca-Cola, Nestle), B2B tech (Optus and IBM) and finance (American Express).

Crimmins came to Orchard from Ogilvy, where she had strategically led key clients such as Optus and Coca-Cola. Since her arrival at Orchard in 2019 she has led the strategy on the Hyundai Australia account. Here, she has been instrumental in helping ensure the brand embraces digital and CX as it navigates a declining and challenging market. She has also been key in significantly improving Orchard's strategic services, specifically in CX and transformation consulting. 

Mikaela's leadership and relentless focus on delivering brand experience through creative and tech, has also contributed to Orchard's success in landing new client wins along with industry recognitions, including AdNews Digital Agency of the Year and its recent nomination for CX partner of the year – alongside IBM and Qualtrics. In the last three years she was the proud recipient of the Mumbrella NeXt award, recognising outstanding creative agency talent in the past 10 years.

Orchard managing partner, Wai Kwok says: "This industry and Orchard need people who are passionate about connecting brands in non-traditional ways. And finding someone who can ensure data, CX and brand are working together seamlessly, is like finding a needle in a haystack. We're just lucky that needle was in our haystack!

Mikaela has always been a formidable talent in this industry – her knack for moving teams and clients around a common goal is flawless. Anyone who has worked with her, can attest to her ability to inspire great work and even greater people. We can't wait to see what she does with Orchard in the next couple of years."

Says Mikaela Crimmins, new head of strategy at Orchard: "I returned to Orchard two years ago because I knew I wanted to make different-shaped ideas with non-cookie cutter agency types. And I found it. The Orchard Experience team is made up of a bunch of weird and wonderfully talented people. To say I'm thrilled to lead this team is an understatement. There are very few strategic teams with our composition or capable of designing the types of experiences tat we are."