Ben Shepherd departs PwC’s CMO advisory group
Ben Shepherd, director of PwC’s CMO Advisory, has left the consulting firm, Mumbrella can reveal.
Shepherd, formerly OMD’s head of strategy and innovation, was one of the wave of PwC’s high profile hires as the consulting firm moved into the CMO advisory and marketing space in 2017.
Shepherd joined PwC in 2017 after three years with OMD
Justin Papps, head of PwC’s CMO Advisory, told Mumbrella: “We thank Ben for his contribution to PwC and wish him all the best in his new role.
“We will continue to invest in our CMO Advisory practice and specifically our media advisory team – working with advertisers, publishers and agencies to maximise the return on media and make the most of the dynamic changes in the market.”
Formerly the commercial director of Sound Alliance, Shepherd joined OMD in 2014 as head of digital before later assuming the strategy and innovation role.
Shepherd’s appointment to the consulting firm was part of the PwC’s building of its CMO advisory practice which followed former adman and TV executive Russel Howcroft as chief creative officer in 2016.
The following year, PwC also invested in creative agency Thinkerbell, which had been founded a few months earlier by former Cummins & Partners global chief strategy director Adam Ferrier and joint ECDs Jim Ingram and Ben Couzens.
Ben is one of the best media thinkers to read of late. All the best in whatever’s next.
Several much-touted consultancy hires over the last couple of years are starting to jump. Could this be the start of an exodus finding that the daily grind and billable time sheet pressure of the consultancy model isn’t working?
Plenty of news around about consultancies changing staff or losing them lately. Accenture Interactive also let go a number of senior staff recently. LinkedIn profiles are yet to be updated in most instances. It’s a small industry and news (usually) travels fast….
One of the better writers of opinion pieces lately, usually very insightful stuff. What’s the chances he’s moving to Thinkerbell?
Hhmmm,
Hi Anonymous – wise and correct words. Its all starting to fall apart!
PwC have had a lot of people leave there CMO business it would be great to know why. We haven’t heard much about what they are doing.
^ or maybe he just felt like doing something else?
Ben is a clever guy, I can only imagine it’s a bigger and even better opportunity 5:1 Thinkerbell 15:1 KPMG 20:1 Deloitte
Feels like the message here is do not voice your opinions as it can be seen as disruptive
My bets are on that as well!