Havas Media Group Names Graeme Douglas CSO

Havas Media Group (HMG UK) has announced the appointment of Graeme Douglas, formerly Creative Director at Wieden + Kennedy, to the role of Chief Strategy Officer.

Three media agencies now sit under the HMG UK umbrella – Havas Media, Arena Media and Forward Media, servicing the O2 account. Douglas’ immediate focus will be on Havas Media and Arena Media, where he has been tasked with developing business strategy across the agencies, while ensuring each business’s individual identity is clearly defined.

Working alongside Natasha Murray and Henry Daglish, respectively MD of Havas Media and Arena Media, and reporting into Paul Frampton, Graeme will oversee the agencies’ new business efforts and creative output, while instilling data and content into the planning process.

Douglas joins HMG UK from Wieden + Kennedy where, as Creative Director and formerly as Director of Interactive & Innovation, he was responsible for the creation of digitally-led innovation across the agency. Most recently he led the creative output on Three and Honda, writing and co-creatively directing the global viral smash ‘The Other Side’ in late 2014.

Between 2009 and 2011, Douglas was Planning Director on the Nike UK account, working on overall strategy for the brand and helping develop the multi-Cannes winning ‘Write the Future’, as well as Nike GRID and ‘My Time is Now’. He was also a leading figure in the agency’s swoop for the Tesco business in 2012.

Douglas has held senior planning and strategy roles at Carat, ZenithOptimedia and Equinox Communications, and has worked with a range of leading brands including P&G, Renault, Smirnoff, and Anchor.  He has won multiple awards for both his strategy and his creative work over the years, including at Cannes, D&AD and the Account Planning Group (APG), and in 2007 was awarded a ‘Distinction’ in the industry-leading IPA Excellence Diploma.

Paul Frampton, CEO at Havas Media and Head of Clients and Strategy at HMG UK, said: “Graeme has a unique background and range of experience on both agency and client side. We are confident he is the ideal person to lead and drive forward our ‘together’ strategy at HMG UK, while promoting both closer collaboration between our media brands and agencies, and our content and creative assets through Cake, ais London and Havas Sports and Entertainment.”

Graeme Douglas added: “The combination of the spirit that comes with owner-managed independence and the scale that HMG UK’s network offering can provide is a rare mix and one which I'm excited about operating within. This role, which offers the chance to pull brand strategy, channel thinking, digital innovation, genuinely awe-inspiring insight, data-capability and, of course, creativity together on a range of fascinating brands across Havas was simply too good to turn down.”

Douglas will begin working at HMG UK from Monday 2 March 2015.