CIA Medianetwork axes six directors in UK purge
CIA Medianetwork UK has made about 30 redundancies, including six directors, and is to restructure its UK business following a sequence of heavyweight account losses.
The losses include the 110m BT account, which was won by the Allmond Partnership in July this year.
Director Greg Grimmer, media director Richard Britton and press director Jackie Almeida have all lost their jobs . Other casualties include Edward Lloyd Barnes, director of CIA subsidiary IDK, and associate directors at The Negotiation Centre, Paul Sumner and Simon Poole.
As part of the restructure, the agency’s TV airtime buying arm, The Negotiation Centre, will be merged into CIA Medianetwork.
The move has been widely criticised by industry observers who say the company is effectively axing its next generation of management. But chairman and acting chief executive Mainardo de Nardis dismisses the criticism: “We have a number of directors and they are all upcoming stars of the future.”
CIA is thought to employ about 200 people in its London office. The number of redundancies has been reported as about 30 people, but de Nardis says the figure is much lower and that some people had decided to leave already.
The news follows the effective demotion of former chief executive Mike Elms, who will now focus on developing international client relationships, as revealed exclusively last week (MW October 15).
