AnalogFolk has reshuffled at the top to bring on board Guy Wieynk, who recently spent four years as CEO of Publicis UK and Western Europe.
Wieynk’s appointment to global CEO represents a speedy move in the wake of the departure of Ete Davies, AnalogFolk’s well-respected and high-achieving London managing director, who moved to be CEO of Engine in the summer. AnalogFolk is looking for a replacement London MD.
Wieynk left Publicis a year ago, but before joining the French-owned agency group in 2015, spent 17 years at AKQA, so the AnalogFolk move appears to bring him back onto home turf, plus he has a lot of experience as an international operator.
The appointment also comes with a nice golden handshake for Wieynk: AnalogFolk has bought the business, Serum Consulting, that Wieynk started up as recently as June. As global CEO, Wieynk will oversee 350 people across six offices: London, Hong Kong, New York, Portland, Shanghai and Sydney, where clients include Nike, Unilever and Diageo.
At Publicis, Wieynk steered the agency through a pretty tough time that involved imposing many of group CEO Arthur Sadoun’s consolidation measures, which included integrating digital agency Poke and shopper agency Arc into the main Publicis London ad agency. Poke’s former CEO, Nick Farnhill, is now CEO of Publicis.Poke.
Bill Brock, one of the agency’s founders, has moved to adopt a lead role on global business development, making room for Wieynk to take on the global CEO role.
Wieynk said: “AnalogFolk has a great culture, free from bureaucracy, that allows them to act like a start-up, whilst having the scale of a network to deliver for their clients. I was very impressed by their speed and depth of digital thinking.”
This is an updated version of an earlier story.
