Innovation group, Happen Group has announced that Chris Pinnington will join its board as non-executive director.

Formerly Global Chief Operating Officer of Havas Group, one of the world's largest communications groups, in his new role, Pinnington will support Happen Group’s global network expansion and be instrumental in helping to build on the initial rapid growth of StarMaker, the digital innovation toolkit developed by Happen Group, and Happen’s sister agency Winkle, a market research agency.

Chris Pinnington, non-executive director at Happen Group says, "I've been aware of the Happen team's brilliance at helping their clients to innovate successfully using inspired techniques and IP, so I was delighted when they asked me to help them to move on to their next stage of growth."

At Havas, Pinnington ran the operations side of the worldwide business for eight years, overseeing the 316 agencies in the two main networks: Havas Worldwide and Arnold.  During this time he helped Havas to outpace WPP in organic growth in four out of the previous five years and significantly boost its profitability. Over 32 years he had a variety of roles including running Havas's agencies in London and Sydney and took responsibility for integrating the UK group of companies. Pinnington also acts as non-executive director on the boards of Futerra, Heals & Vivienne Westwood.

Commenting on the appointment, David Walker, Happen Group CEO and co-founder and Wrinkle co-founder says, “Chris brings the depth of experience in scaling marketing service agencies we need to fulfil our ambition to build the world’s number one innovation agency group. Our success delivering over $4.5bn of incremental revenue for our clients has been made possible by a combination of smart people and proven IP. Chris brings the operational leadership experience we need to leverage this IP and accelerate the growth of both Happen and Winkle from our bases in Europe and North America.”