Bastion Experience has entered the fast-growing southeast Queensland market with the highly experienced sports, entertainment, and finance industry executive Rohan Sawyer leading the agency in the newly created role of Queensland managing director.
Bastion Experience is the leading strategic, brand, sponsorship and experiential arm of the independent marketing and communications agency Bastion.
Sawyer will lead the Bastion Experience team on the ground in Queensland while providing clients with access to the full suite of integrated communications services under Bastion’s ‘Think Wide’ model.
The model brings together best-in-class offerings and experts across the spectrum of communications disciplines, from research and insights through brand and creative to advertising, reputation, digital and customer experience, sponsorship and experiential, film and content production, Asia marketing and communications and data analytics.
Sawyer will join from Queensland Rugby League where he has spent five years as CEO and chief operating officer. He has also held roles as strategy and co-managing partner at Events, Sports, and Entertainment (ESE), and as head of commercial and marketing for both the 2017 Rugby League World Cup and the Australian Turf Club.
Sawyer’s finance industry expertise saw him hold investment strategy roles with Goldman Sachs and UBS, while, more recently, he sat on the advisory panel for the Brisbane based crypto exchange, Coinstash.
Jack Watts, Bastion’s CEO, welcomed Sawyer as the ideal candidate to lead Bastion Experience’s drive into a market set for significant long-term growth: “Firstly, we love Queensland. It has been a long held ambition to build our fully integrated, independent agency model in Queensland.
“We started last year with the acquisition of Queensland PR and Social Agency Promedia, now Bastion Amplify, and continue our investment in the state with Rohan and the launch of Bastion Experience.
“We believe our long held reputation and work in Sport and Lifestyle will be critical to our growth in the State, and I don’t believe there is any better executive in Sport than Rohan Sawyer. We’re thrilled to have him on board to lead our commercial, sponsorship and experiential services in Queensland.”
Sawyer said he relished the opportunity to bring Bastion Experience’s one stop shop for brands and rights holders to the Queensland market.
“I am thrilled to join a market leader and innovator in the industry, with a proven track record of delivering on brands and rights holders’ needs to drive commercial growth. I look forward to contributing my expertise and working with the talented team to deliver significant benefits to brands and their customers.
“Queensland is fast becoming the center of Australian sport and major events, with the road to Olympics, Brisbane 2032 an exciting opportunity for all brands in the State.”
Bastion Experience’s expansion follows the launch of Bastion Amplify (Bastion’s PR, influencer marketing, content, and social media brand), into the Queensland market with the strategic acquisition of Gold Coast-based full service PR firm Promedia in November 2022.