Jacob set for top EMEA job at Starcom

Starcom MediaVest chief executive Iain Jacob is tipped to replace Mark Cranmer as head of the agency’s Europe, Middle East and Africa group.

Sources suggest that Jacob has yet to sign the contract, but it is thought that a brief to replace him in the UK is about to go out.

Cranmer, who has been the region’s chief executive for five years, resigned earlier this summer and is not thought to have a job to go to. He will not leave the agency until March.

Jacob, however, insists that it is “not true” that Cranmer has already been replaced.

As a founder director of Bartle Bogle Hegarty Media in 1987, and then of Motive in 1995, Jacob set up Motive’s international division and became the managing director of the merged Starcom Motive in 2000. He has been by Cranmer’s side for more than a decade, and is seen as his natural successor.

Starcom UK chairman Jim Marshall is not believed to have made a bid for Cranmer’s post.

A spokeswoman for Starcom MediaVest Worldwide says: “We are not making an announcement today.”