Gabler joined the agency two years ago after several years running her own business. Gabler headed FlicFlac and spent time in the corporate world overseas. She will now take over from co-founder Jason Stewart.

Stewart has been largely responsible for restructuring and re-skilling the agency over the past three years. Stewart's aim has been to transform it from a small specialist mainly active in the influencer and social media spheres to a full-service agency able to meet the needs of any client or project.

This responsibility will now be handed over to Gabler as her day-to-day role. Stewart will now focus on adding value for the agency's clients, as well as explore unexpected opportunities for growth and building new revenue streams.

"HaveYouHeard is in an incredibly healthy position with a very strong foundation, culture, team and systems that make doing good work exciting and stimulating. We have a very unique offering and approach that clients are enjoying. [It has also] picked up exciting brands as new clients and is perfectly positioned to be able to deliver very powerful work," says Stewart.

"It is, therefore, the perfect time for myself and co-founder Ryan McFadyen to relinquish day-to-day control and focus on what we do best; [this is] innovating within the creative world by sharing responsibility for the agency's future with someone who understands its idiosyncrasies, who shares our passion and vision and who has the skill set to do a great job," adds Stewart.

"Victoria is undeniably that person. From day one, she leveraged her strong operational skillsets, financial acuity and street-smarts to make us more efficient and pass those benefits — financial and time savings — onto our clients," he says.

"As head of integrated execution, she managed all execution departments from experiences, to activations, to influence, to digital, to production, to PR. Here, she did a phenomenal job of integrating our departments and teams — morphing them from silos into collaborative units. This had an immediate impact on our work and made us more efficient and effective so that we were delivering better outcomes, easier," says Stewart.

"With her incredible ability to bring out the best in people and the teams they form, she is able to simplify and systemise excellence and has earned the respect of everyone in the agency. We're very proud of her, how she has grown through our in-house development and leadership programme, and look forward to seeing her positive influence on our clients' businesses," adds Stewart.

Gabler has a strong background in FMCG, a deep understanding of the South African liquor industry and a track record in activations and brand events. She studied marketing management at the Institute of Marketing Management and has a diploma in advertising from The Institute of Marketing Management.

For more information, visit www.haveyouheard.co.za. You can also follow HaveYouHeard on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.