Katie Lee departs Sunshine to rejoin Lawson and Burley at new look Y&R London

Y&R London CEO Paul Lawson has hired Sunshine MD Katie Lee as the agency’s new managing director. Lawson, appointed just over a year ago, and Y&R CCO Jon Burley both worked with Lee at Leo Burnett. She began her career at CDP and has also worked at BBH, Saatchi & Saatchi and Gravity Road.

Lawson (below with Lee) says: “Katie brings serious experience and professionalism to our plans to grow the agency. If we are going to move upstream, and once again operate as partners to our clients, we need people with Katie’s experience and knowledge to be able to lead those grown-up conversations and ensure we are demonstrating a real return on the clients’ investment in their agency.”

Lee says; “Y&R feels like a start-up with backing. With such incredible resource behind it, it’s an exciting time to build and shape a company into what a modern agency should be. And of course, working with Paul and Jon again just adds to the excitement. In my experience team is everything; teams win pitches, teams create culture and teams build agencies. I know from day one we will be operating at 100 per cent as we already have the trust in place to take Y&R where we want it to go.”

WPP-owned Y&R is now headed by global CEO David Patton, formerly head of Grey EMEA, who has moved swiftly to strengthen an agency which was beginning to look lightweight, losing big accounts including Lloyds Bank to former Rainey Kelley/Y&R alumni at adam&eveDDB and Marks & Spencer to Grey.