The auction world’s grand reshuffle continues. Phillips has just announced the appointment of Matt Carey-Williams as deputy chairman, Europe and Asia, which will be effective from January 6, 2015.

This is Phillips’s latest coup in an offensive strategy to propel itself beyond its long-standing third-place position in the auctioneering game. The ambitious plan begun last July with the appointment of Edward Dolman as chairman and CEO of the company (see “Edward Dolman Takes the Helm at Phillips“) and continued last October with the opening of a vast new auction house and exhibition space in London’s Mayfair (see “Phillips Opens Massive New Flagship in London“).

Phillips is now betting on Carey-Williams, with his 17-year experience in the contemporary art market both in the commercial gallery and the auction house world, to strengthen commercial relationships in both the European and Asian markets. He joins Phillips from White Cube, where he’s been director of sales since January 2013.

Carey-Williams started his career at Sotheby’s as a junior cataloguer in 1997. Four years later he moved to New York and became one of Sotheby’s youngest senior vice presidents. Four years after, he left the auctioneer to work in sales at Gagosian New York. In 2006, Carey-Williams returned to London to become international director at the now-defunct Haunch of Venison, a position he held until 2012.