London - Simon Francis has joined Saatchi & Saatchi as Chief Executive Officer, EMEA, based at Saatchi & Saatchi's London offices. He has responsibility for 70 Saatchi & Saatchi offices across Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Francis joined Saatchi & Saatchi from OMD where he was EMEA MD with responsibility for 34 markets reporting directly into the CEO of Omnicom Media Group. At OMD, Francis worked as part of a team that presided over a business turnaround resulting in impressive revenue growth and doubling profits across the region.
At OMD, Francis was responsible for the agency winning major new client assignments worth £1.6bn including Vodafone, Sony, Sara Lee, Kia, Carlsberg, Bridgestone and Danone. He was the architect of Fuse OMD's join venture in experiential marketing and branded content with the Radiate Group of companies.
At Saatchi & Saatchi, Francis will work closely with SSF Group UK CEO Robert Senior and drive key Saatchi's European accounts.
Francis says that every creative agency he's come across in the last few years has lost its media "mojo". As the newest member of the worldwide leadership team at Saatchi & Saatchi and with his impressive media background, Francis is clearly the man to reverse this trend for the company and ensure better ways of working with media owners that will pay dividends for Saatchi & Saatchi clients.
Francis has also worked at MindShare where he was director of futures and he's no stranger to working in creative agencies having spent some time at Leo Burnett as director of integration. He started his career at Zenith Media.