Stephen Allan Named CEO Of MediaCom Worldwide

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Stephen Allan, previously CEO of GroupM UK, has been named Chairman & CEO of MediaCom Worldwide. He succeeds Alexander Schmidt-Vogel, who has taken on the newly established role of CEO Global Trading of GroupM Worldwide.

Stephen Allan joined The Media Business at the age of 18, and as its Managing Director, helped grow TMB to become one of the UK’s largest independent media agencies before it was merged with MediaCom in 1999. Under Stephen as CEO, the merged MediaCom TMB agency quadrupled its billings in only five years, and became the #1 agency in the UK market. In addition to his UK role, Stephen also served as Vice Chairman of MediaCom Worldwide from 2003 until 2005. After MediaCom was purchased by WPP in 2005 and became part of WPP’s media investment management operation, GroupM, Stephen was named CEO of GroupM UK. In this position, he was responsible for managing the UK’s largest agency group, including MediaCom and sister agencies Mediaedge:cia and MindShare.



Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of GroupM, stated: “Stephen has invested his heart in the MediaCom and GroupM networks over the years. When the opportunity came up for him to continue shaping and growing the business in a significant, potent manner, he jumped at the chance. We are thrilled to have won Steve as CEO for MediaCom globally.”

Alexander Schmidt-Vogel: “When MediaCom acquired TMB in the UK back in 1999, the TMB management was one of the best reasons for the acquisition. I considered this one of the best management teams in the world, and knew that this management would strongly lead our UK organization in the future. My dream, even back then, was that Stephen Allan would one day take over the leadership of MediaCom Worldwide. I am wholeheartedly glad that he is now ready to do so.”

Stephen Allan stated: “All of us at MediaCom owe a huge debt of thanks to Alexander. His vision and leadership transformed us into a truly global media agency. Like Alexander, MediaCom is in my blood, and I am relishing the opportunity to further unlock the potential of our business. There are so many talented people inside our network and I really do believe, that for MediaCom, the ‘best is yet to come’.”

The management handover will be effective immediately. Stephen will be based in London.

ABOUT GROUPM

GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation. It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including MAXUS, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia and MindShare. Our primary purpose is to maximize the performance of WPP’s media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our shareholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance-enhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation, and new communication services, to bring competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.