Hasta La Creative!

TBWAMedia Arts Lab poached Katrien De Bauw from Saatchi & Saatchi to serve as regional managing director of its London office, beginning in October, Campaign reports. Saatchi & Saatchi told the publication it is currently looking for a candidate to replace her. At TBWAMAL, she will replace Tom Hares, who left in March to found a startup. 

In her new role, De Bauw will be responsible for overseeing the office’s day to day operations and leading the office’s senior management team while reporting to L.A.-based executive director of international Mike Litwin. 

De Bauw has served as chief operating officer for Saatchi & Saatchi London for the past three and a half years. Before joining Saatchi & Saatchi she spent over seven year as managing director with Fallon London. Prior to that she spent nearly four and a half years with TBWA London as an account director, following two and a half years as an account executive with Lowe and Partners in Brussels.

“Katrien has always been a brilliant leader at Saatchi & Saatchi London,” Saatchi & Saatchi U.K. CEO Magnus Djaba told Campaign. “But the thing with brilliant leaders is that eventually, they need their own business to run. We’ll miss her, but we also couldn’t be happier for her.”

“Leaving the Saatchi family has been one of the hardest decisions, but this is an extremely exciting time to join TBWAMedia Arts Lab,” De Bauw added. “The opportunity to work on a brand as high profile and iconic as Apple and be at the forefront of the next generation of Apple advertising is simply too good to pass up.”

Diageo-owned stout brand Guinness has announced that it’s holding a pitch seeking a new agency for its global advertising account, parting ways with Saatch & Saatchi, who have worked on Guinness’ global account for six years.

“To drive better integration between idea generation and multi-channel execution we are looking to appoint a new agency to lead content creation across digital and shopper channels for our global platform, ‘Made of More,’ said Grainne Wafer, the global strategy and communications director at Guinness.

“The rationalisation of tasks and agencies over the last couple of years, and specifically just recently, have substantially changed the creative potential of the global Guinness account,” said Magnus Djaba, the chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi London. “As a result, we feel the time is right for us to part ways. We wish Diageo all the best in finding the right agency for the business going forward.” Saatchi & Saatchi began work on the account back in 2008, with the brand approaching its 250th anniversary.

The pitch will not affect Guinness’ regional relationships, such as with AMV BBDO in the UK and in Africa (an account which BBDO won from Saatchi & Saatchi last year), and BBDO New York in the US.

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