Hill and Wiedenmann leave Initiative

by Arif Durrani, Media Week 05-Sep-08, 17:00

LONDON - Jerry Hill, the former chief executive of Initiative UK who became the agency's global strategic development director in March, and Dirk Wiedenmann, president of EMEA at Initiative, have both left the agency following an internal restructure.

Hill's abrupt departure ends eight years of service at the agency and follows a review carried out by Initiative's global chief executive Richard Beavan.

His strategic duties will be assumed by senior management at a regional level while Wiedenmann's media brands role will be added to Graham Duff's brief, president of EMEA at Initiative.

A spokesman for Interpublic, Initiative's parent group, confirmed the departure and said an official announcement will follow next week.

The spokesman stressed the departures are the culmination of months of review and are not connected with Initiative's loss of the £75m Orange UK media planning and buying account yesterday.

Before joining Initiative in November 2000, Hill was chief executive of the United News & Media sales company TSMS.