Former BGC Australia Residential boss Kelvin Ryan is bringing a distinct Western Australian flavour to his role as managing director of Victorian homebuilder Simonds Group, signing prominent Perth property executive Kate O’Hara to head the company’s marketing operations.
Former BGC Australia Residential boss Kelvin Ryan is bringing a distinct Western Australian flavour to his role as managing director of Victorian homebuilder Simonds Group, signing prominent Perth property executive Kate O’Hara to head the company’s marketing operations.
Ms O’Hara stepped aside from day-to-day operations at commercial property developer Hawaiian in August last year but remains on its board of directors. Shortly after she was contracted to revamp Simonds’ marketing communications.
An experienced marketing executive, Ms O’Hara worked full time at Hawaiian for 17 years prior to joining Mr Ryan at Simonds.
“I’ve come over to get in line what was effectively a pretty poor approach to marketing over the past few years,” Ms O’Hara told Business News.
“It got to a point where it needed a clean-up in terms of processes and systems.
“The opportunity is huge, it’s an opportunity for me to get back into mainstream marketing and digital marketing, and even some corporate social responsibility work.
“It’s a very different role to my role at Hawaiian and it’s great to be back making television commercials and mainstream media.”
Ms O’Hara said she had enlisted several WA-based production teams to assist in creating an integrated solution that brought together mainstream advertising on television and radio, social media channels and Simonds Group’s customer relations management systems.
“Being on the clients’ side and having gone through all the roles inside Hawaiian that I have, you pick up not just the marketing management but the business management side,” she said.
“It gives you a heap more insight into how the business is affected by what we do in communications.
“It’s been a huge advantage to have had that time inside Hawaiian. I was blessed to be there for so long and it’s a unique business that I’m still very passionate about.
“But that experience is just something that you grow from.”
Mr Ryan joined Simonds Group in February last year after eight years as managing director of BGC Residential, WA’s largest builder according to the BNiQ Book of Lists.
He told Business News that, since being appointed last year, he had also recruited former Now Living executive general manager Troy Gorton to a senior role at Simonds Group.
Despite the WA executives joining him, Mr Ryan said there were no imminent plans for Simonds Group to enter the WA housing market.
Simonds Group was close to making that move in 2015 when it held a call option to acquire Gemmill Homes for $6 million.
The builder, which started construction on 2,500 homes in 2017-18 to be the nation’s fifth-largest according to the Housing Industry Association, declined its option after performing due diligence on Gemmill
