George P. Johnson Refocuses Agency to Deliver against Growth
Bankside-based agency George P. Johnson has taken the bold and forward-looking step to bring together its brand experience specialists from project management, digital, technical production and live event production into one truly integrated team. Fran Elliott has joined to lead the charge – as the agency’s first head of integrated production.
Previously UK leadership board director at Momentum Worldwide, part of McCann World Group, Fran will be supported by Mark Bannister, now head of technical production, John Farquhar-Smith, now head of live production, and Lizzie Mildinhall, now head of event operations.
The decision to bring together existing expert teams under one unified banner is designed to deliver agility, whilst maintaining the skills and knowledge to scale-up and down both locally and globally, dependent on clients’ needs. The move follows four years of unprecedented double-digit growth, that has seen the agency move to its new central London offices, diversify its client base and bring in a raft of new talent.
The increased focus on agency agility will enable GPJ to adapt to clients’ rapidly changing needs, shorter lead-times, financial pressures and importantly, the ability to deliver against consumers’ ever-increasing expectations. In order to roll-out the new structure, client groups and projects will gradually transition to accessing GPJ’s services via producer-led teams, supported by advisory client partners.
There will be further investment in the agency’s talent and culture team, who will deliver a future-focussed learning and development programme across the integrated production team and wider agency. This will create robust career pathways in all disciplines, while at the same time encouraging flexibility, should individuals be keen to pursue a more rounded integrated producer skillset.
Fran Elliott says: “I am really excited about the opportunity to rethink how we pool talent across all our client briefs. Moving away from the more traditional, siloed ways of working is something I’ve been a long-time advocate of, so when the chance arose to build an Integrated Production offering with the backing of GPJ, I jumped at it.”
Jason Megson, VP, managing director, GPJ UK & Nordics adds: “We believe this operating model has the dual benefit of delivering clients great work faster, while supporting the creation of long and diverse careers for our world beating team.”
