Olympus picks head of European operations

Camera manufacturer Olympus has promoted managing director Graeme Chapman to European managing director of sales.

Chapman, who will oversee the company’s operations in 26 countries, was marketing director at the Olympus Optical Co UK until 1998, when he was promoted following the retirement of Barry Taylor.

Chapman will have overall responsibility for European consumer product sales, which the company claims were worth &£350m last year.

His duties will be divided between his office in London and Olympus’s European head office in Hamburg. He will report to European executive managing director Werner Teuffel.

Chapman takes over from Rainer Sauer, who has left the company. It is unclear whether Sauer had a job to go to. An Olympus spokesman refused to comment.

After ten years with Unilever, Chapman joined Olympus’s sales department in 1979. In his 12 years as director of marketing, he oversaw the expansion of the company’s product portfolio from a limited single lens reflex camera range to digital cameras, microscopes and medical products.

Last year, Olympus handed its &£5m pan-European ad account to FCB in Germany after a three-way pitch which included incumbent Lowe (MW February 8, 2001)

Lowe retained the business in the UK and produced last year’s TV ad featuring Joan Collins and the strapline “So sharp it hurts”.

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