LONDON – Lindsay Pattison, Maxus UK’s head, has succeeded Vikram Sakhuja as global chief executive officer of the GroupM media network.
Pattison has been credited with successfully leading the UK operation for the past five years, improving its market ranking from 14th to 7th in that time and growing head count from 30 to more than 250.
Concurrent to her UK role, Pattison was global chief strategy officer role for the last two years, overseeing product, planning, marketing, new business and effectiveness. Pattison will co-locate between London and New York and will report to GroupM global president Dominic Proctor.
“Lindsay has a proven reputation as a leader and is held with enormous regard both internally and by her clients,” said Proctor. “She exemplifies the spirit and ambition of the Maxus culture and we are confident she will take the network into the next stage of growth.”
Pattison said of her promotion: “I love the energy of Maxus and I relish opportunity that comes from our unique and fortunate position as the challenger brand within GroupM. At Maxus we have a mantra to lean into change. In fact it’s really to lead change for our clients, navigating the complexity and embracing the possibilities offered in a digitalised, mobile, always-on media landscape. It’s an incredibly exciting time to lead a media agency.”
Pattison will be succeeded in the UK by managing director Nick Baughan.
Sakhuja, who was promoted global CEO a little over two years ago and had made Mumbai Maxus’ global base, will remain with the network, according to Maxus. But hthe network has yet to announce his new role. He was GroupM India’s CEO at the time of his promotion in August 2012.
Sakhuja has been credited with driving Maxus’ growth momentum, with the agency again topping Recma’s 2013 index as the world’s fastest-growing media network.
