James Welch to leave WPP’s Media Innovation Group
Welch
James Welch, the Asia Pacific director of WPP’s Media Innovation Group (MIG), is leaving the company.
The departure of the former Innocean Sydney new business manager, which will take place in April, comes following the merger of 24/7 Media and Xaxis.
Xaxis, WPP’s real-time buying unit, and digital marketing brand 24/7 Media, merged in December last year. MIG, which was formerly part of 24/7 Media, subsequently fell under the remit of Xaxis.
Welch is among the first round of redundancies announced by Xaxis globally.
Welch told Mumbrella: “It’s been an exciting couple of years with 24/7 Media’s MIG. In Asia, we are the only part of the MIG that kept its brand after the mid-2013 integration with 24/7 Media; that’s because we have been on the right trajectory. But we didn’t survive the merger with Xaxis.
“I’m around till mid-April and thereafter I’ll be looking at roles to help advertisers “get programmatic”, in the meantime, the rest of the team will be integrated into the larger Xaxis business. For clients, I’m sure it’ll be business as usual,” he said.
The Englishman joined MIG just over a year and a half ago, leaving a role as head of new business at creative agency Innocean in Sydney to move to Singapore.
Prior to Innocean, Welch was a senior suit at Australian agency Oddfellows. In his career, he has also worked as new business director at Y&R, Europe Middle East Africa, marketing director of media agency Vizeum in the UK, and a consultant to brand agency FutureBrand in the UK and Hong Kong.
Brandscreen and these guys? So much for RTB being the future eh?
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Hopefully James comes back to Sydney to organise more dinners.
He’s way too much fun to be in programmatic.
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