Leadership changes bring Bastion Effect and Bastion China closer together

Bastion Collective has announced that Bastion China is under new leadership, with Bastion Effect’s CEO, Richard Chapman, and General Manager, Roxanne Millar, taking on new roles in the Bastion China business.

The pair have been appointed CEO and General Manager of Bastion China respectively, with departing CEO Jane Lu finishing in February to concentrate on family and further education. The move aims to bring both businesses closer together to provide clients with fully integrated communications.

CEO of Bastion Collective, Jack Watts, said the two businesses offer similar communication services – Communication Strategy, Creative Execution, Media Relations, Influencer Marketing, Social Media and Activations – but to different cultural groups – so having a centralised management structure made sense.

“Given how closely Effect and China are already working and the volume of requests we are now seeing come through from clients, it makes sense to bring them closer together in this manner while retaining both brands,” he said.

“Richard and Roxanne will take a leadership role across both businesses, and Jane Lu, who has been with Bastion China for a little over a year has decided to step back from the business to undertake a third masters degree and start a family.”

Bastion China and Bastion Effect will remain as two separate entities but will be working closer together under the leadership of Chapman and Millar.

Bastion Effect has its own successful international marketing arm led by Jesse White, which works with Australian brands on their export marketing through Asia and already works closely with Bastion China to develop marketing strategies in China.

“Marketing to our Chinese community has long been seen as an intimidating art form, with many brands putting it in the too hard basket for too long. We’re really seeing that tide change and are working with a number of clients to craft truly integrated strategies that execute with the appropriate cultural nuance across ethnicities in Australia and abroad,” said Chapman.

“We believe Bastion is poised to lead this approach in market leveraging the insights of our cross-cultural research team at Bastion Insights, our international marketing experts at Bastion China and those within Effect’s broader international division.”