Levin comes to HDI from TBWA\South Africa, where his career spanned almost 10 years, latterly as a consultant with The Disruption Consultancy. Apart from him having had an existing relationship with the HDI Youth Marketeers team as a consultant on special projects, he has also worked with HDI through TBWA\SA on the Khuza youth advertising awards since 2005.
“HDI Youth Marketeers has been on a steep growth curve that has accelerated into 2008, so we decided to bring on an energetic new pair of hands to help manage it,” explains Loubser, who will remain on as an executive director responsible for foreign markets, insight development and key account relationship management.
“I'm lucky to have an insider-cum-outsider's view of what a great company HDI Youth Marketeers is. It's the leader in its market, but also has a fascinating business model that can be expanded for exponential growth. When Liesl asked me to help drive that, it was pretty much a no-brainer. It's going to be great fun to help take South African, and African, youth marketing to new heights,” comments Levin on his appointment.
Levin is an Honours Marketing graduate who began his career in the financial services sector. In 1998 he crossed over to advertising, where he worked as head of strategic planning at AdFocus' 1998 Emerging Agency of the Year, tool. After the agency faltered in 1999, he took up the position as MD, reformed it, realigned it to TBWA\SA and relaunched it as Digerati in 2000. He then built Digerati into one of the most respected digital marketing agencies in South Africa, picking up numerous local and international awards along the way.
In 2005, Levin returned to strategic marketing as a consultant with TBWA's brand company: The Disruption Consultancy. His leading role in business concept incubator, Elevation, has also kept him busy over the past two years. In addition, he has built a reputation as a professional back-patter of sorts, having been a key driver in the New Channel Digital Art Awards, Kellogg's Star In U Kids' Awards, Khuza Awards and the recent inaugural Star of Mzansi awards.
