CGE&Y culls UK marketing staff

Global management consultancy Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) has made six of its 28 UK marketers redundant.

Global management consultancy Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) has made six of its 28 UK marketers redundant.

The company says the compulsory redundancies will affect marketers at all levels of seniority.

It adds that UK sales and marketing director Andrew Warren is not affected. Warren was given control of marketing in April, following the departure of marketing and communications director Helen Blake at the beginning of the year.

A spokeswoman for CGE&Y says: “These redundancies are regrettable but are necessary to structure the department to respond better to the needs of the business.”

In April, CGE&Y appointed the Euro RSCG network to handle its &£25m creative account, which is largely controlled from the company’s Paris headquarters.

CGE&Y’s previous agency, Amsterdam-based Strawberry Frog, created a campaign last year around the strapline “defy the economy”. Sandwich boards were carried around central London, with slogans such as “Attention: please remain fearful while running your company until further notice”.

In addition to the UK redundancies, CGE&Y is cutting three per cent of its French workforce, including senior executives, and is going to the markets to raise &£280m to bolster its finances. The company has suffered since its purchase of rival Ernst & Young Consulting in 2000, just before the technology bubble burst and IT spending collapsed.

Last year, the company made 5,000 people redundant.