Bastion is an integrated, full-service marketing and communications agency.

Fergus Watts Founder and Non-Executive Chairman

Thanks to his knack for understanding business quickly and creating growth opportunities, Fergus Watts has assisted some of Australia’s most dynamic companies in charting the future of their marketing and communications. First and foremost, Fergus believes that a company is nothing without quality people growing within it. He has even fostered his own education program, the Bastion Degree, to help turn visionary young workers into well rounded self-starters.

Jack Watts Group CEO

Since 2019, Jack has led and driven Bastion’s growth to become the largest independent Agency in Australasia with a growing presence in the USA. As Group CEO, Jack is hands on day-to-day with Bastion’s global team, client base, service and geographical expansion. Jack is driven to ensure that anyone – client or colleague – that walks through one of the many yellow Bastion doors around the globe has a world class experience.

Cheuk Chiang Chief Executive Officer, ANZ

Cheuk Chiang, the CEO of Bastion, ANZ, spearheads one of the leading independent marketing and communication agencies in Australasia. With a career deeply rooted in innovation and leadership across creative, media, data, and technology, Cheuk has consistently pushed boundaries and driven success.
Prior to his current position, Cheuk held pivotal roles, including CEO, Asia Pacific for Dentsu Creative, and CEO, Greater North APAC for Dentsu. His journey into the realm of data and technology began with the chairing of Mutiny, where he capitalised on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Before Mutiny, Cheuk showcased his prowess at Omnicom, serving as CEO, APAC at Omnicom Media Group and CEO, APAC for PHD, where he orchestrated remarkable growth, expanding PHD from 3 offices to 21 and leading OMD and PHD to over 130 local and regional agency of the year awards across the Asia Pacific region. His tenure at Cummins & Partners witnessed an era of unprecedented success, marked by numerous agency of the year awards and ground breaking campaigns, with the agency later acquired by Sapient Nitro.

Before his tenure at Cummins, Cheuk made substantial contributions at Leo Burnett Singapore as Regional Account Director, notably driving the Asia Pacific Breweries account to become one of Burnett's largest clients in the region. Throughout his illustrious career spanning three decades, Cheuk has worked with an array of esteemed brands including Apple, ANZ Bank, Coca-Cola, GSK, Heineken, Kmart, Mars, Myer, Nestle, Unilever and VW. His industry accolades include being recognised as Media Magazine's Suit of the Year in 2002 and Agency Innovator of The Year by the Internationalist Magazine in 2010.

Cheuk's commitment to innovation and creativity is further evidenced by his roles as a judge at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and his chairmanship and presidency of esteemed industry awards such as the APAC Effie Awards and Spikes Asia Media jury. In 2015, Campaign Asia honoured Cheuk as the Asia Pacific Agency Head of the Year, a testament to his ongoing impact and leadership. His influence continued to flourish in subsequent years, with appointments as Chairman of the APAC Effie Committee in 2017 and President of the Dubai Lynx Media jury in 2018. Cheuk remains a steadfast advocate for driving creativity and innovation within the industry.

Jeremy Jenkinson Group CFO

Jeremy has more than 30 years financial and commercial experience in the marketing and communications industry. More recently he has spent the last 13 years as the CFO for JWT and Wunderman Thompson across Australia and New Zealand. During this time he also served as Chair of the WPP Australia Finance Group and more recently as a member of the WPPAUNZ Finance Executive Committee.

Richard Chapman Asia and Amplify Managing Director AU

A creative communications practitioner with industry experience amassed over 20 years, Richard is a multi-channel expert who believes in the power of storytelling. He co-founded PR and experiential agency Spark Impact, going on to join one of the top global media and communications agency networks where he spent a decade creating memorable experiences that connected brands with consumers.

Steven Howlett Insights Managing Director AU

Steven has 20+ years' experience as an insights professional and loves asking simple questions like 'why?'.  Equally loves to ask 'why not'.  Which makes for an interesting household with three children under 8! Steven is a natural leader of teams and brings the best out of each individual working towards a common goal for clients. Cutting through the guff to get to the best outcome for the team and clients and having fun along the way. Steven has all the needed formal education, on the job experience and credentials to help businesses and teams succeed in their ambition.  He has a level of energy that is unmatched and is naturally set to be positive and he is often described as bringing the Woo Hoo to every interaction. 

Matthew McCann Experience Managing Director AU

Originally starting off in the mail room at McCann Erickson as a youngster, Matt went on to be one of the youngest B&T 30-Under-30 winners. Before joining Bastion, Matt had a four year stint as Global Chief Operating Officer at a brand consulting agency. And before that he held the role of General Manager – Media and Sponsorship at Telstra from 2012 to 2015 managing a massive portfolio across 325 markets nationally.

Mike Godwin Creative Managing Director AU

Mike is one of Australia’s leading agency professionals. Mike has helped clients such as McDonald’s and Coles successfully navigate their way through brand and business transformations. He led the McDonald’s business in New Zealand when the client won Client of the Year at the annual Effectiveness Awards. He helped turnaround the fortunes of DDB Sydney as GM, seeing it win B&T’s State and National Agency of the year as well as Employer of the year during his tenure. After running and building the Melbourne office of multinational agency Wunderman Thompson (JWT) from an office of 30 people to 120, over ten years, Mike joined Bastion to lead its Creative team.

Tim den Braber Digital Managing Director AU

I am a highly motivated, business leader with a true passion for innovation & business transformation. I bring a strong balance of Business, Creativity and Technology.

Through a diverse background of positions held, I have developed multi-disciplinary capabilities focused on Team Leadership, Building & Management, Digital Strategy & Innovation, Business Transformation, Advisory, Deep Partnerships across eco-systems, Brand & Communication Strategy, Experience Design Strategy, Client Relationship Building & Growth, Platforms & Conceptual Architecture, End to End Production & Development processes, Content, Stakeholder Management and Media

I have strong experience in key categories for Financial Services, Automotive, Health Services, Retail (Across Electronics, Fashion and Beauty), Travel and Tourism, Industrial (Digital), Government & Education, Telecommunications & Directories.

Angela Morris National Chief Strategy Officer AU

Angela has over 20 years’ global experience in building compelling brands & marcoms for clients such as Treasury Wine Estates, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Jetstar, HSBC, RAC, Vodafone, Subway, Ford and Tourism Queensland. She also specialises in behaviour change inc. health, road safety and bush-fire. Previously National Chief Strategy Officer at WPP’s Wunderman Thompson, Angela is widely awarded and has served as Chair of the APG, on the Communications Council Board, the Effies Committee and numerous award judging panels.

Simon Langley Chief Creative Officer AU

Simon Langley has been successfully leading agencies and creative departments for over a decade. A personable and collaborative leader, Simon has a proven track record of producing highly effective, long-term campaigns across all channels, for some of the world’s most iconic brands. Throughout his career in Australia and overseas at some of the industry’s most creative agencies, his work has been recognised at all the major award shows, including over 30 Cannes Lions, multiple D&AD yellow pencils and NY One Show gold, silver & bronze amongst others.

Edwina Webb General Manager of P+C