Mindshare global CEO Nick Emery (below) is the latest senior adland figure to fall foul of changing mores, fired by GroupM owner WPP for an unspecified “clear breach of conduct.” GroupM CEO Christian Juhl, who’s taking over as interim boss of Mindshare, said that “inappropriate and offensive behavior” is not tolerated in the company.
Emery had been a Mindshare lifer, joining from JWT when the media agency was formed back in 1997.
There have been no details about what Emery is alleged to have done or his view of the matter. WPP/GroupM has just produced the usual platitudes about respecting everybody etc that companies do in these circumstances, hoping, no doubt, to bore inquisitive hacks into submission.
Such issues are a notoriously sore point at WPP. Its JWT (now part of Wunderman Thompson) more or less imploded following the Gustavo Martinez affair when the global CEO was accused of sexism and other misdemeanours while founder and long-term CEO Sir Martin Sorrell left under a cloud following an investigation, although he was almost immediately deemed a “good leaver” in one of those Dickensian displays of logic that only highly-paid settlement lawyers seem able to construct.
Update
According to Campaign Emery was fired after a “video prank” misfired (subscription required.)
Seems a touch heavy, but, then, again, we haven’t seen the aforementioned video prank. These days, evidently, it’s one strike and you’re out.
