Billy Mawhinney tipped to take creative helm at Faulds

Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper’s creative director Billy Mawhinney is understood to have accepted an offer to take the creative helm of Faulds, Scotland’s biggest agency.

The appointment of a senior London creative to the Edinburgh company is a coup for Faulds which is determined to be seen as a UK creative agency rather than a Scottish business-led agency.

Mawhinney takes over as creative director from Jim Downie, who has been caretaking the role since Simon Scott and Andrew Lindsay left in 1996 to form rival agency The Union.

It will be Mawhinney’s third agency move in two years. In February 1997, he left Ammirati Puris Lintas – breaking up a 14-year partnership as art director to Nick Welch’s copywriter – to join Ogilvy & Mather. At O&M, he partnered Leon Jaume on the Ford account, but the pair quit a week after the agency lost the 15m Guinness account in January 1998. Six months later, O&M lost a substantial part of Ford to Young & Rubicam.

Mawhinney then moved to Euro RSCG to head its Citroë account and Jaume went to WCRS.