Andy Nairn is renewing links with the former senior managers of the
agency which gave him his first job with his appointment as the joint
planning director of Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy.
A one-time graduate trainee at Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, Nairn is
returning from the US, where he had been the planning director of Goodby
Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco.
He will share the planning directorship at MCBD with Helen Weavers, who
succeeded Neil Dawson when he took over as the planning chief at
TBWA/London seven months ago.
Jeremy Miles, the MCBD chairman, insisted that there would be no problem
switching from a single planning director to joint responsibility.
Miles said: "This isn't a title issue but a brain issue. We have 14
pieces of business. Helen can't run them all and be involved in new
business as well."
Nairn worked with Miles and Helen Calcraft, another MCBD founding
partner, at AMV, which he joined as a graduate trainee in 1993. He was
part of the AMV team which successfully pitched for the WH Smith account
and helped develop the subsequent campaign starring Nicholas
Lyndhurst.
He joined Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe - where he first worked with
Weavers - as the agency's first board account planner in 1997. His main
responsibilities were Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Direct and Virgin
Cola.
Miles added: "Andy was AMV's star graduate and could easily have been
planning director there. He's got more brain power than most of us put
together yet he's extremely sympathetic to the creative process and
creative development."
During his time at Goodby Silverstein, Nairn worked on two of its
largest accounts -the telecoms giant SBC and Goodyear Tyres.