Reading Room restructure includes new MDs and Distillery closure
UK digital agency Reading Room has closed sister arm the Distillery and appointed new managing directors in Manchester and London as part of a widespread restructure.
The closure of the Distillery, another digital marketing agency which sat within the company, has led to the departure of Paul O’Donoghue who was appointed to head up the operation when it was launched in August 2009.
The decision is thought to be due to a lack of new clients being brought in through the Distillery.
In other changes head of strategy Garry Byrne has been made managing director of Reading Room Manchester and group operations director David Burgess has become managing director of Reading Room London.
The Manchester office has not previously had a managing director but Byrne will now have responsibility for leading the entire team based in the north west of England.
Jenny Allan will also head up the company’s new international team from Manchester, where she will work on global information management strategies. Reading Room says it is recruiting further in the city while strategy director Polly Willson will also become managing director of the newly formed Reading Room Studio.
CEO Margaret Manning (pictured), told The Drum: “A lot of our clients are now focusing on their Asian expansion so we’re being led a lot by our clients while Great Britain is still in a certain amount of economic turbulence, whereas Singapore is seeing 14% expansion per annum.
"A lot of UK clients are now looking at expanding into Asia and part of that expansion plan means that they need expertise in social media, mobile and web in the Asian market which is what we aim to provide.”
Last month Reading Room announced that it had opened an office in Singapore, which will be followed by further office launches in Shanghai, Mumbai and Japan in the next year.