Dan Clays, the CEO of OMD UK, has today been promoted to CEO of Omnicom Media Group UK.
Clays succeeds Philippa Brown, who was recently named CEO of PHD Worldwide, and will report to Mike Cooper, group CEO EMEA & Asia Pacific at Omnicom Media Group.
The reshuffle means Tim Pearson, the current CEO of Manning Gottlieb OMD, will become CEO of OMD Group UK, with oversight of the separate leadership teams of OMD UK and Manning Gottlieb OMD. Pearson will report to Clays.
Clays’ new remit will see him take responsibility for OMD UK, MG OMD, PHD and Hearts & Science as well as for Specialist Services Annalect, OMG Programmatic, Fuse, Drum, OMG Ethnic and Benchmarketing.
Since joining OMD UK and the OMG UK board seven years ago, first as managing director and since 2014 as CEO, Clays has overseen more than £200m of new business wins in the last 18 months.
Meanwhile, Pearson has been at Manning Gottlieb OMD for 20 years, becoming CEO in 2015.
“We are extremely fortunate to possess outstanding media agencies in the UK that compete very effectively at the highest level and consistently win major awards,” said Cooper.
“I’m delighted that we have some of the best talent in the industry and we can therefore confidently promote from within at OMG UK. Dan Clays and Tim Pearson are two of the industry’s finest leaders and have each demonstrated that in these transformative times speed, agility and innovation are key to success.”
Commenting on his new role, Clays said: “I am excited to take on responsibility across four outstanding and distinctive agencies and also our exceptional specialist services. We will continue to embrace bold change to drive the growth of our clients’ business and create more opportunities for our talent across the UK.”
Tim Pearson added: “These are exciting times for media agencies and the opportunity to step up and assume responsibility for the entire OMD UK Group portfolio is one I’m going to relish.
“Both agency brands are strong and will continue to be independent of each other. I look forward to rising to the challenges this enhanced responsibility presents, to getting to know everyone at OMD UK and to working closely with Dan to drive further success.”
Omnicom Media Group is the media services division of Omnicom Group, providing services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.
