People on the move featuring Diageo, Kerry Foods, Havas, Uber and more
This week has seen another wave of appointments and departures at brands, media owners and agencies. The Drum has rounded up the key moves from the EMEA, APAC and North America regions below.
People on the move featuring Uber, TBWA/Dublin and Havas
Delloitte
Deloitte has strengthened its Scottish digital offering with the poaching of Royal Bank of Scotland staffers Gareth Edwards and Debbi McLean to join the leadership team at its Edinburgh HQ.
Edwards, who has more than 16 years’ experience in digital, has joined the firm to lead the expansion of its Edinburgh studio. His appointment follows the firm’s acquisition of proposition design consultancy Market Gravity in June.
McLean joins the firm with over 14 years of experience in the financial services industry. She joins from Royal Bank of Scotland where she was senior service designer, working on the team that designed and delivered the first customer facing AI service for the bank.
AOL
AOL’s UK commercial director Gavin Johnson is leaving the online business as it merges into joint Yahoo-AOL umbrella company Oath.
Johnson joined the business when AOL acquired Millennial Media in October 2015 and in February 2016 was promoted to lead the combined UK operation across AOL's brands such as HuffPost and Engadget, the Microsoft portfolio, the content division Partner Studios and the One by AOL programmatic stack.
Uber
HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington has presented herself as the surprise new face of ride-hailing app Uber, as she sets about fixing Silicon Valley’s ‘systemic culture’ as an influential board member.
In reference to the spate of crises and allegations of sexism that have bedeviled Uber in recent months, culminating in the departure of chief executive Travis Kalanick himself, Huffington was parachuted in to mend the firm's broken public image.
Diageo
Diageo’s first head of programmatic has departed after just six months to join digital agency Jellyfish as digital strategy director.
Gawain Owen’s arrival at Diageo after a four-year stint at FMCG-giant Nestle – where he was programmatic media manager – was a landmark move for the drinks maker as it sought greater control over its programmatic buying.
Thomas Cook
Chris Chalmers has joined Thomas Cook as UK marketing and ecommerce director to take on the responsibility for overseeing that travel brands marketing and digital activity across the UK.
Having spent the last ten years in digital marketing with experience as the digital marketing roles for Asda, Jet2 and Tesco.
Kerry Foods
Kerry Foods has appointed Nick Robinson as chief marketing officer. In his new role, Robinson will be responsible for the brands across the UK and Ireland.
Mother
Matt Craigie Atherton has joined Mother London as chief production officer effective in September.
Joining from Adam&Eve/DDB as head of integrated production, Atherton will work to oversee the the production of the agency and work to improve its offering.
British Vogue
British Vogue has named supermodels Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, and filmmaker Steve McQueen, as contributing editors, as well as luring back former Vogue creative director Grace Coddington as a contributor.
The news comes in the wake of a PR storm cooked up by fired fashion director Lucinda Chambers.
Just Eat
Peter Plumb has been appointed as chief exectuive officer and executive director at Just Eat replacing Paul Harrison who was holding the role on an interim basis.
Having stepped down from Moneysupermarket.com Group PLC, where he had held the position of chief executive since 2009, earlier this year, Plump has previously worked at Disney Consumer Products, Dyson Appliances Limited and is a non-executive director of The Co-operative Group Limited.
TBWA/Dublin
TBWA/Dublin has appointed John Kilkenny as creative director where he will work closely with clients to work on the creative output of the agency overall.
Talking about the move, Kilkenny said: "This feels like the start of something big. Collaboration is key for me and I’m looking forward to working with talented people in our agency and our industry.”
Havas London
Havas London has bolstered its creative team with a trio of hires welcoming Matt Swinburne, Jonathan Rands and Alex Tizard.
Swinburne, previously Droga5 New York, joins as creative director, while Rands and Tizard both join from Grey London as senior creatives.
Mullenlowe
MullenLowe Group China has restructured to create a “hyperbundled” digital and creative agency, appointing former DDB China chief executive Richard Tan to lead the new organisation.
The hyperbundled agency will integrate the MullenLowe China creative communications business with MullenLowe Profero digital business.
Isobar
Isobar has bolstered its experience design team in Hong Kong and Australia with the appointment of Chirryl-Lee Ryan as division head.
Working with clients throughout the region Ryan will report directly to David Jessops, managing director of Isobar Hong Kong, who has tasked her with liaising with clients throughout the region.
Current Marketing
Current Marketing, an Interpublic Group agency, today announced new hires in Chicago and New York, adding talent to its client experience, content, insights and integrated media communities.
The Chicago office has added Leah Hattendorf, senior vice president-planning, and Matt Sulzer, creative director.
Also new to the Chicago office, Sulzer spent the last 15 years as a creative lead at agencies including VML, Critical Mass and DDB.
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