BBH appoints new global chief in top tier shake-up

Bartle Bogle Hegarty is planning to shake up its management structure as it prepares to install Gwyn Jones, back from running the New York office, as the new global chief operating officer. The move will put a question mark over the role of Simon Sherwood, who currently holds the position.

Sherwood has confirmed that the new structure will be put in place next January, but he declined to give further details.

Jones, formerly the chief executive of BBH London, took charge of BBH’s New York office in September 2004. He returned to London in September and is currently on a sabbatical. In New York, Jones has been replaced by the agency’s global director of strategic planning Emma Cookson. Jones, the agency’s first graduate trainee in 1987, has spent his entire 20-year career at BBH.

Sherwood, who was instrumental in kick-starting the expansion plans for the business in the mid-1990s when
he first set up shop in Singapore, earned his place as BBH’s third party alongside Nigel Bogle and Sir John Hegarty after John Bartle retired in 1999.

He joined the agency in 1982 and has since been involved in opening offices worldwide, including Tokyo, New York and is now looking into widening the reach of the network to India. Sherwood has also been key to the agency’s Unilever business.