Extremely hazy chain of events

Denise Porter is indeed leaving us to join J Walter Thompson, as you reported last week (MW September 15), but I’m afraid most of the other facts in your news story were woefully inaccurate.

Considering that Porter was not even on the agency’s board (and head of media, not media director as reported), the chain of events predicted as a result of her departure verged on the hysterical.

Her leaving certainly does not “cast doubts on the future of the agency’s media department”. It is alive and kicking and in the process of making exciting changes that will put us at the cutting edge of media planning in London. And to suggest that KHBB faces “an uncertain future as an independent” is another gross inaccuracy. Both Cordiant and the agency’s management are working together on its relaunch following the abortive management buyout. Careless comments to the contrary don’t help anyone.

It’s a shame that no one at Marketing Week asked me about either of the two theories posited in the piece. If they had, you might have got a better story and we might have felt less aggrieved on Wednesday morning.

Hamish Pringle

Chairman

CME.KHBB

London WC2

Nothing in the article stated that Denise Porter was on the agency board. When asked about the implications of her departure, a spokesman for KHBB insisted that the company had no further comment to make.- Editor.