Zenith ‘Mr Fixit’ Jeans to leave

MEDIA

Zenith Media general manager Roy Jeans is leaving the media-buying giant to join regional press and below-the-line specialist Mediaforce.

Jeans, who is described as Zenith’s “Mr Fixit”, will oversee all the group’s activities but take special responsibility for the Mediaforce regional sales operation. Jeans was formerly Zenith’s head of press and was last month elected chairman of the Regional Press Club.

Mediaforce handles advertising sales for local newspaper groups such as Emap, Scottish & Universal and Adscene. The company also runs a number of leaflet and free newspaper distribution companies.

“It is a new position created to help us handle our growth over the past two years,” says Mediaforce joint chief executive Mark Young. “We have known Jeans for some time and he is the ideal person to help us focus on all of our activities.”

No decision has yet been made by Zenith on whether to fill Jeans’ position. “As our general fixer, Jeans had a rather mixed bag of responsibilities,” says one Zenith source.

“Latterly, he had been concentrating on the new business side. We believe he has genuinely left to pursue a good opportunity.”

Since joining Saatchi & Saatchi in 1986, Jeans worked on regional press buying, ran the company’s now-defunct poster specialist Pinnacle, was broadcast director and last year oversaw the relaunch of Zenith’s subsidiary Acme Media as Equinox Communications.