Saatchi & Saatchi London has made two key management changes and has promoted Richard Huntington, currently Chief Strategy Officer, to Chairman and Sam Hawkey, currently a Managing Partner, to Managing Director.
The creation of the new London roles follow the recent promotion of Saatchi & Saatchi London CEO Magnus Djaba, who has added the title of Global President Saatchi & Saatchi to his remit and the arrival of Danny Josephs as COO in December.
Huntington will continue as Chief Strategy Officer in addition to his new responsibilities as Chairman. He will focus on representing Saatchi’s unique brand and culture inside and outside the agency and in particular with clients.
Huntington has led strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi London since joining in 2008. He works across most of the agency’s clients from HSBC to EE to Direct Line as well as looking after its thought leadership programme.
Sam Hawkey has worked at Saatchi & Saatchi London since 2012 on both global and local clients including Guinness, Kerry Foods, T-Mobile and Weight Watchers. Before joining the agency, he worked at Glue Isobar and Dial Media Group. He will now oversee the day-to-day management of the agency whilst continuing to head up the EE business and driving the Publicis Communications integration internally.
Djaba said: “In the 5 ½ years that we’ve worked together, Richard has relentlessly demonstrated that he is the beating heart of this brand. His incredible energy, spirit and focus on our clients’ challenges epitomizes what Nothing is Impossible is all about.
He added: “It’s the beginning of what I’m sure will be a very exciting journey for Sam. He’s the best young account person I’ve met in a decade – and I’ve met an awful lot of them.”
Huntington said: “Representing the unique brand and culture of Saatchi & Saatchi is a job I was born for - I have worked for some great agencies in my time but I am tribally Saatchi.”
Hawkey added: "I’ve been at Saatchi & Saatchi for five years and I am proud to have seen and been a part of the immense transformation of the agency over this time. As we settle into a new building our focus is on evolving, innovating and pushing into new areas and capabilities. I will be doing everything I can to accelerate these through the business to deliver them to our clients as quickly as possible.”
Both Huntington and Hawkey will work closely with Josephs to bring world-class creative solutions to clients and accelerate business growth.
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