Starcom EMEA chief quits to launch start-up agency

Starcom Europe Middle East and Africa managing partner Pete Edwards has resigned to launch a start-up agency with Starcom business director Jez Groom, who has also resigned from the agency, and ex-client services director Will Saunders. His resignation was announced to Starcom on Tuesday afternoon.

The trio is planning to launch a communications planning agency called EdwardsGroomSaunders at the end of this month. The agency aims to “deliver more effective communication thinking from start to finish”.

The founders claim they have developed an approach that “delivers a sharper definition of the consumer challenge, a powerful consumer vision, a focus on dynamic measurement for effect”.

Saunders says: “Too many agencies play lip service to the fundamentals of effective communications and end up measuring the one-dimensional media metrics rather than those critical to success.”

The three partners have worked together for more than ten years, starting at Bartle Bogle Hegarty. The clients they have worked with at Starcom include Cadbury, Orange and Stella Artois.

Edwards took over as managing director of Starcom Motive in 2003 after Iain Jacobs was made chief executive of Starcom MediaVest. The agency has since dropped the name Motive and the group is split into Starcom and Starcom MediaVest.