Petropoulos out as Greet takes Mindshare reins

John Petropolous.

Greet to return to agency land.

James Greet, the former chief executive at OMD and the man who was hailed for turning around the agency's fortunes from a

once-struggling media outfit to a major industry power player, is set to make a return to the ad industry at Mindshare.

AdNews understands that Greet is due to start at the GroupM company in June,

Greet left OMD in late 2006 after buying a 50% share of The Ladder, a recruitment agency set up 18 months previously by

James Burke, the man who headhunted him for the OMD role. At the time Greet said that running his own business was always

a goal, and going into partnership with “someone I have a huge amount of professional respect for having dealt with him on

both sides of the fence, was a great opportunity”.

At OMD, Greet was largely credited with reversing the fortunes of the agency after a bad run of client and staff losses

during the early '00s. In 2005, after Greet had been in the role for three years, OMD won 13 new accounts, and followed it

up in 2006 by snaring the Telstra media buying account along with the dairy giant Fonterra across Asia and Australasia.

"He's got a strong track record of turning around under-performing assets," said OMD managing partner Peter Horgan who

worked under Greet for several years at OMD.

Greet's appointment comes as GroupM prepares to make a series of restructures of its upper management following the

retirement of Asia-Pacific chairman John Steedman.

SYDNEY: Former OMD chief executive James Greet is returning to agency land as chief executive of Mindshare, replacing John Petropolous.

Current Mindshare country leader John Petropoulos will step down immediately. Mark McCraith has been appointed to managing director of Melbourne. Both he and the Sydney managing director Tracie Michael will report in to Greet.

Greet is credited with reversing the fortunes of OMD after a bad run of client and staff losses during the early part of the last decade. In 2005, after Greet had been in the role for three years, OMD won 13 new accounts, and followed it up in 2006 by snaring the Telstra media buying account along with the dairy giant Fonterra across Asia and Australasia.

AdNews understands that Greet is due to start at the GroupM company on 1 June.

Greet left OMD in late 2006 after buying a 50% share of The Ladder, a recruitment agency set up 18 months previously by James Burke, the man who headhunted him for the OMD role.

At the time Greet said that running his own business was always a goal, and going into partnership with “someone I have a huge amount of professional respect for having dealt with him on both sides of the fence, was a great opportunity”.

"He's got a strong track record of turning around under-performing assets," said OMD managing partner Peter Horgan who worked under Greet for several years at OMD.

Greet's appointment comes as GroupM prepares to make a series of restructures of its upper management with the impending retirement of Asia-Pacific chairman John Steedman.

Mindshare chief executive James Greet.

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