Last September, when Lee Doyle left his role as the head of WPP’s MEC media network, the company said he would stay within the corporate fold in what was then an undefined role. That’s now borne out as Doyle has been named to the newly created job of president, client development, at WPP media network Mindshare.
The move is part of the new management structure under Antony Young who was named CEO of Mindshare North America last summer. Young had previously been the U.S. chief of Publicis Groupe’s Optimedia agency and was replaced by Marla Kaplowitz, who was named North American CEO in October.
Doyle moves over to an agency that is currently the North America, Western Europe incumbent in Unilever’s $7 billion global media review. Mindshare said Doyle has the new-busines chops for the role. While he ran MEC’s North American operations, the company grew 40 percent and won the consolidated AT&T media assignment, with about $2 billion in spending, and other new business from Marriott, Bloomberg, Michelin, IKEA, Activision, Novartis and Macy’s.
In addition to Doyle’s recruitment, Mindshare said it hired Alexander Ouvaroff as the agency’s West Coast lead. He was most recently evp at Marketing Evolution where he oversaw Anheuser-Busch InBev, and he takes over for Sandy Constan who recently stepped down from that L.A.-based role at Mindshare. The company also promoted Michael Epstein, who was previously client leader, to president, strategic resources and client services. Two other Mindshare executives have been promoted as well: Jake Norman, managing director business planning and client lead for Tim Hortons and J.M. Smucker is now the president, chief strategy officer, Mindshare Canada, a new role at the company, and Dervilla Kelly has been upped to executive director, client leadership, another new role.