WCRS hit by new loss as Tilby departs

Beleaguered agency WCRS is suffering from its third senior departure in as many months.

Deputy chairman and executive creative director Alan Tilby has left the agency to set up his own business, which he says will act “as an adjunct to a conventional agency”. He will reveal further details later this month.

WCRS managing director Stephen Woodford claims it is “a very amicable parting”, but sources suggest that Tilby’s relationship with agency chairman Robin Wight was becoming increasingly fraught.

Tilby’s exit follows that of chief executive Andrew Robertson, who joined Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO as managing director in February, and Amanda Walsh who quit as WCRS managing director to form Walsh Trott Chick Smith in March. In addition, over the past year a number of major clients have defected from WCRS, including Sega, Thomson Holidays, Prudential and Sharwood’s.

WCRS’s creative will be run by joint creative directors Larry Barker and Rooney Carruthers.