Admedia appoints Garry Lace to new MD role

Admedia, the out-of-home and experiential media owner, has appointed Garry Lace to the new role of managing director. The former Lowe and Grey chief executive will take over the role on July 1.

Lace, who has been low profile since he was ousted from Lowe in 2006, will be responsible for building senior relationships with “big-brand advertisers” and their roster of agencies in a bid to drive Admedia’s expansion. He will also seek to grow its existing business and look at “complementary areas” such as experiential and mobile.

The agency currently operates a variety of media in shopping centres, 131 motorway services and over 1,500 nightclub, bars, restaurants and healthclubs. It is planning to double its size in the next three years.

According to Admedia, Lace will take a “significant equity stake” in the business, which was launched by joint chief executives Philip Vecht and Jonathan Naggar in 1995.

Lace says: “Over the last couple of years I have been working on private equity deals across the media sector and became interested in the scale and opportunity presented by non-traditional media.”

Earlier this year, Marc Mendoza, managing partner at Havas-owned MPG, also joined the company as a non-executive director and Jonathan Lewis, the former managing director of Clear Channel Billboards joined as chairman. He replaced Stevie Spring, who relinquished the role to join Future Publishing as chief executive.

Since his departure from Lowe, Lace took the role of chairman and direct and digital agency Intelligent Marketing, and has also been advising private equity ventures. Lace is also a former chief executive of Grey London and TBWALondon.