Grey London has made what looks like an enterprising appointment in its choice of a new CEO, Anna Panczyk who moves from head of Grey Group in Poland. Grey Group in Poland consists of Grey Warsaw, Testardo (shopper marketing), Grey Works (production), Cohn & Wolfe (PR) and Grey digital.
She joins recently-appointed creative chairman Adrian Rossi (both below) who joined in December from AMV BBDO. Panczyk replaces Leo Rayman who is now head of new venture Grey Consulting.
Grey Worldwide CEO Michael Houston says: “Anna has been a prime mover in transforming Grey Poland into a creative and new business powerhouse. She is a natural to lead Grey London, our flagship office in Europe. Together with the arrival of Adrian Rossi, her appointment opens an exciting new chapter in our evolution as a ‘Famously Effective’ agency focused on the future.”
Grey London has struggled for the past couple of years as a number of luminaries departed. Creative supremo Nils Leonard left with two other senior execs to form Uncommon Creative Studio while EMEA boss David Patton went to Y&R (also owned by WPP) and London CEO Christ Hirst left for Havas where’s he’s now boss of its creative network.
So far Grey seems to have evaded WPP’s programme of mergers which has seen Y&R merged into VML (and the departure of Patton) and the world’s oldest big agency brand JWT merged into Wunderman to form Wunderman Thompson.
Rossi is a highly-regarded creative and Panczyk, the first Eastern European to take on such a post in London, should bring something new to the party. She is also one of a number of women who, finally, seem to be bobbing to the surface in adland leadership roles. WPP’s Wunderman Thompson is helmed by global bosses Mel Edwards and Tamara Ingram while Omnicom’s DDB Worldwide is run by former Coca-Cola executive Wendy Clark.
Hopefully, not the situation as in the movie “What the women want” 😉