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The University of New South Wales has restructured its marketing function and named Sangeeta Chandra as marketing lead.
The new UNSW brand team is part of a broader transformation of the marketing and digital experience (MDX) function, supporting the university’s strategic direction, ‘Progress for All’. Ex-IBM marketer Tara Moody was appointed in March as head of brand marketing to lead the function, with Sangeeta now joining to support her.
As part of a 2024 reorganisation process, UNSW introduced a small number of new brand marketing roles, redefined existing ones, and brought together the marketing and content function to build a more agile, audience-focused, and impact-driven marketing capability.
UNSW Sydney executive director – marketing and digital experience, Sofia Lloyd-Jones, told LBB the new brand team will “distinctively position UNSW through storytelling, thought leadership, and brand communication” to amplify its “contribution to societal impact”.
“We are concentrating our brand efforts in four impact focus areas that reflect current public issues, and by doing so we aim to strengthen our leadership as a local and global driver of positive societal change,” she said.
“The four impact focus areas are: one, accelerate the transition to a sustainable society; two. advance economic and social prosperity for current and future generations; three, enable healthy lives; and four, strengthen societal resilience, security and cohesion.”
The brand team is “central” to the MDX team, bringing together marketing, content, newsroom, creative services, and social media functions, alongside digital marketing and web teams.
“We’ll be working together to make brand UNSW even stronger and realising our new ten-year strategy, with a focus on societal impact,” Sangeeta said of her new role.
“A huge thank you to my incredible colleagues in Future Student Recruitment, especially the International team, where I’ve had the privilege to work for the past 18 months. We’ve achieved record International student enrolments and event attendance, substantially grew our market share, navigated proposed student caps, improved our processes and cross-functional collaboration, and had fun along the way.”
Sangeeta has spent close to two decades in brand strategy. She was marketing and partnerships manager at the Art Gallery of NSW, before moving into a student marketing role at the University of Sydney. She has been a future student marketing lead (international) at UNSW for 18 months.
UNSW recently reappointed independent agency Howatson+Company, following a competitive review, across media, creative, and production. The agency will support the rollout of the brand platform, ‘Progress for All’, and contribute to UNSW’s communications strategy across Australia and the Asia Pacific.
The indie launched the ‘Progress for All’ brand platform in 2024.
“While internal capability has been strengthened,” Sofia added, “Howatson+Company will continue to collaborate closely with the brand team, ensuring alignment and creative excellence across campaigns.”
The creation of the UNSW brand team comes amid a flurry of activity in the higher education category. Last month, Curtin University appointed Monks as its strategic digital experience agency to elevate the university’s online experience. Deakin University also launched its first work since partnering with SICKDOGWOLFMAN, and earlier this year, Dentsu Creative launched its first major work for RMIT, ‘What the Future’.
