The Huddle Room restructures leadership, creates new data-led units

The Huddle Room (THR) is making significant changes to its leadership structure as it adopts a new ‘growth agency’ strategy, aimed at helping client businesses grow beyond advertising. One of the Philippines’ better-known independent agencies with nearly 80 employees, THR has reassigned its five managing partners and set up two new teams to help clients with data-led solutions for their business challenges. 

Dimples Cruz, previously managing director of THR will now become chair and CEO of both THR and its digital, performance and native agency Hyper Buzzle. She will be succeeded by Pat Dizon as THR’s new managing director, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the main agency. Prior to co-founding THR, Dizon led her own business unit at Touch DDB Philippines after earlier roles at Starcom and Ace Saatchi & Saatchi. 

Among the other managing partners, Julia Garcia now becomes chief growth officer, tasked with new business opportunities. Reena Robles has been named chief of innovations and will also help to lead THR’s new data-driven creative division. Finally, Eugene Manalo will become the THR data lead, as chief of 'E-merging Platforms and Data,’ including a new data management team. 

New data-led units

The Huddle Room has rebranded its creative and data teams, forming LADDR, a new data-driven creative unit for the agency, led by creative director Joey Melliza along with Robles. The data management team will now be known as Pulse, led by Aleli Dinglasan along with Manalo, which aims to turn research and metrics data into actionable insights for THR and Hyper Buzzle. 

“For quite some time, The Huddle Room has been known as an integrated media agency, but a lot of our creative services clients are led by data-driven creative thinking,” Manalo tells Campaign. “We saw a growth opportunity in data-driven creative, which is why we created a separate unit and then wanted to crystallize our data unit by integrating our different teams from social media, community services and analytics.” 

In other news at THR, Tatum Cruz who is leading the communications engagement team will become consumer growth head. Associate integrated communications director Kim San Luis will become a platform growth unit head along with current digital lead Kris Calot.