Pooler hires deputy at MindShare
Mandy Pooler, UK head of WPP’s new joint media operation called MindShare, is to take on Mike Wood, J Walter Thompson’s media director, as her deputy.
The fate of other senior managers in the new company, including that of Bill Kinlay, currently media director of The Network, has not yet been announced.
Pooler says: “All the other senior positions will be discussed over the next three to four weeks. This is not a cost-cutting exercise. We are not looking at redundancies.”
Pooler’s boss Dominic Proctor, former chief executive at JWT London, has been confirmed as chief operating officer of MindShare and chairman of MindShare UK. He is replaced by managing director Stephen Carter.
Proctor says MindShare will not be a conventional operation because of its huge size and global reach, and because of the range of services it can offer clients through sister companies in the WPP Group, such as The Henley Centre and Millward Brown.
He says: “We have held exploratory talks with one media independent and two advertising agencies about some form of alliance. There is no benefit in being small. You cannot afford to add value.”
The new company, which will have combined billings of over $14bn (8.75bn) around the world and 440m in the UK, will be the third-biggest operation in the UK after Carat and Zenith, according to Pooler.
