Grey raids Orange for commercial chief post

Grey London has poached mobile phone company Orange’s procurement chief as its commercial director – a role created to build closer client relationships.

Tina Fegent joins the agency in September and is understood to be the first procurement expert from an advertiser to join an advertising agency. Her appointment is in response to the growth in the importance of procurement departments and the power they wield at client companies.

Fegent will report to Grey chief executive Garry Lace, who says

the idea behind the appointment of a procurement expert is to make his agency more accountable to clients and to provide a relevant “human face” to procurement experts at client companies.

“Fegent will be commercially responsible for all aspects of our business,” says Lace. “This is an important step for advertising because it enables us to be a lot more transparent, and we will pass on any saving we make to our clients.”

Fegent, who leaves her role as head of purchasing and marketing services for Orange this week, has 16 years’ experience in procurement at companies such as EMI and Cellnet.