Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO has lured the former WCRS board director,
Hugh Derrick, home after a three-year stint working on the US West Coast
to run its high-profile Volvo account.
Derrick, who joins from Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco,
will also take charge of the Guinness business should AMV win the pitch
taking place early next month.
He replaces Chris Thomas, who quit as AMV’s group account director on
Volvo earlier this year to fill the new post of managing director at
Ammirati Puris Lintas (Campaign, 22 August).
Derrick, 36, already has links with a number of AMV senior executives,
including Andrew Robertson, its managing director, and Peter Souter, the
creative director, who both worked with him at WCRS. ’We’ve wanted to
hire Hugh for a long time,’ Robertson said. ’It was just a question of
finding the job.’
Derrick began his career as a graduate trainee 14 years ago in the Lever
Brothers marketing department. He moved to J. Walter Thompson, later
taking time out before joining WCRS in 1995, where he worked on Sega,
United Distillers, the Prudential and Sara Lee.
Derrick takes charge of Volvo, which bills pounds 18 million in the UK
plus up to pounds 40 million globally, despite having no previous car
experience.
He commented: ’I don’t see it as a big problem because I have experience
of running international pieces of business. I hope I can bring naive
objectivity to the party.’
