Wyatt hires TMP's Mark Fones as creative director
Birmingham agency Wyatt International has hired Mark Fones, TMP Worldwide’s executive creative director for the English regions, to head up its creative team.
Fones had been at TMP since October 2000 and was in charge of the creative output of its regional business - which includes offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Manchester - for the last five years.
He told The Drum that his previous role involved a great deal of strategic responsibility which would stand him in good stead in his new post as Wyatt’s strategy and creative director.
“My background is that I was an exec creative director for five years and that gave me the ability to have contact with clients in a much more strategic, partnership-style way, as well as leading on the creative development.
“The role I'm taking here is about driving a more creative vision throughout the business - not just through the creative product itself but through our strategic thinking as well... It's about joining up the thinking and the doing within the agency.”
Fones has known Wyatt’s MD, Karen Bernie, for the last five years and said he was looking forward to working in an owner-managed “heritage” agency after spending a long time in a “big corporate environment“.
"I think the scope and influence that I can get at Wyatt is something I guess you're promised in the corporate arena but you can never really realise unless you're a shareholder or are on the board.”
He added that part of his remit was to turn “a good creative product into a great one”.
While at TMP, which specialises in recruitment advertising, Fones worked with clients including Yell, Jaguar LandRover, EON and Vision Express. He was creative director at the agency for almost four years before being bumped up to the executive post.
Last year The Drum reported that Damian Howell had quit as Wyatt’s creative director.