Nick Barron, the chief executive officer of MediaCom MENA, has parted company with the agency.
The exact details of his departure are not yet known, but he has left with immediate effect and is currently on gardening leave.
“I’m very proud of what we built at MediaCom over the last few years,” he said. “It is a great agency that has produced great work and we have built a strong client list. I cannot discuss the details of why I left but I will remain in Dubai and will be able to talk about what my next move will be later on.”
It is understood that MediaCom MENA is undergoing a wider restructuring. The agency has had a challenging year, losing its highest profile account, Etihad, which the agency had originally won the business for a few months after Barron’s arrival in September 2011. Publicis Groupe-owned Starcom won the global media planning and buying account for Etihad and its three largest partner airlines Alitalia, Air Berlin and Jet Airways in July this year, taking with it one of MediaCom’s biggest regional clients.
Barron first joined MediaCom MENA in 2011. He was previously CEO of MediaCom Russia, Ukraine and CIS and replaced Eric Hanna, who returned to Grey Group MENA as chief executive after overseeing the 2010 merger between MediaCom and sister WPP agency media INSIGHT. His brief was to expand the footprint of the network across the region, initially in Qatar and Egypt.
Filip Jabbour, the recently appointed CEO of WPP’s GroupM, has stepped in to oversee the business until a replacement is appointed. GroupM is the parent company to WPP’s MediaCom, Mindshare, MEC and Maxus in the region.
MediaCom recently expanded its operations in the Middle East and North Africa with the opening of an office in Kuwait. The new office brought the total number of MediaCom operations to nine, including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Morocco and Lebanon.