Clarity buys Australian agency as 'APAC launchpad'

Sydney-based business Sefiani Communications Group is Clarity’s first acquisition in the Asia-Pacific region, with more planned as part of its global growth strategy.

Sefiani, will continue to operate under the Sefiani brand for the foreseeable future, as part of the Clarity Global Group. Clarity has offices in London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Amsterdam.

Sami McCabe, founder and chief executive of Clarity, described the acquisition as the “perfect launchpad for further expansion across the APAC region”.

“We are also excited to bring on board Sefiani’s market-leading capability in reputation, crisis and issues management and sustainability campaigns – skills the Sefiani team will help build across Clarity’s global team,” he added.

The deal follows Clarity’s purchase of digital agency 93digital and the UK business of public affairs and strategic comms consultancy Political Intelligence last year. Other recent acquisitions include Cornwall-based 3WhiteHats in May 2021. Clarity is also a sister agency of Freuds.

Sefiani was founded by Robyn Sefiani 23 years ago and today employs 21 staff across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and into Asia. Its clients include Airbus, EY (Ernst & Young), Allen & Overy, CrowdStrike, Expedia (Stayz), Henkel and L’Oréal.

Prior to establishing the agency, Sefiani was co-president of Asia-Pacific and a member of the global board at Edelman.

She will join Clarity’s global presidents’ board as president ANZ and reputation counsel. Her brief is to help steer Clarity’s growth strategy in Asia-Pacific while continuing to provide reputation counsel to c-suite clients.

Mandy Galmes retains her position as Sefiani’s managing director ANZ, Nick Owens continues as director of corporate comms and reputation management, and Tina Peng remains director of finance and operations.

Robyn Sefiani said: “We were attracted to Clarity’s highly energised and aspirational leadership team, their ambitions for growth in Asia-Pacific and globally, and the agency’s leading-edge digital and data analytics capability which we can access for our clients.”