Price Waterhouse hires top marketer to head consultancy

Mike Sommers, former marketing chief of MGM Cinemas, TSB and Woolworths, is joining Price Waterhouse Management Consultancy as lead partner for marketing and customer management.

Sommers will head a department of 50 consultants in the UK, which is understood to include two other consultancy partners, and work with top 100 companies on implementing marketing initiatives. Price Waterhouse put out a brief to headhunters to fill the role externally.

Sommers refused to comment directly on the appointment, but confirmed that there would be a press announcement shortly.

The appointment means Sommers will wind down the marketing consultancy, the Paradigm Agency, which he set up after leaving MGM Cinemas. He quit as managing director of the cinema group after it was taken over by Virgin, which brought in its own senior management to run the cinemas.

Sommers joined MGM in 1993 from TSB, where he was marketing director. Previously, he was marketing director of Woolworths.