LONDON — Kindred has appointed behaviour change specialist Tara Austin as chief strategy officer, following recent tenures at Publicis London and Ogilvy. She joins Sharon Bange and Sinéad Gray, who have been promoted to managing partners, on the agency’s senior management team.

Austin was one of the founding members of Ogilvy Change and designed its behavioural experiment to bring down antisocial behaviour in Woolwich after the London riots, which won a Gold Lion at Cannes. She left Ogilvy to join Publicis in March, working with clients including Tourism Ireland and Garnier, and will now lead Kindred’s strategy team.

Austin said: “Kindred has a very strong heritage in behaviour change, so I’m looking forward to building on that and applying behavioural science thinking to our client’s challenges. Sinéad, Sharon and I represent a very different kind of management team to that which is traditionally seen in adland, so I’m excited about what we can achieve together.”

Gray returned to Kindred in 2016 after a spell at Ogilvy, while Bange has been part of the team for more than 15 years. The trio will report to chairman Nick Mustoe.

Frankie Oliver – who joined Kindred as managing partner in March after launching Jolly Rebellion and co-founding Fever – left the company in June. The agency said: “It was a mutual decision that was reached after much soul-searching from both her and Kindred.” Former managing partner Anastasia Scott also left Kindred earlier this year.

At the same time as the restructure, the 65-strong agency – which specialises in PR, social media, advertising and content creation – has rebranded.

Kindred recently won its first airline client, Lufthansa, as well as David Sainsbury’s Gatsby Foundation; and PR for the UK Department for Education’s flagship teacher recruitment campaign, Get into Teaching.