London - On the back of its recent aggressive expansion strategy, Saatchi & Saatchi has hired Katrien De Bauw, the managing director of Fallon, to the newly created role of chief operating officer.

De Bauw (pictured right) will run the day-to-day operations of the business, manage the agency's continuing growth, and will also oversee a number of Saatchi & Saatchi's key accounts, reporting to Magnus Djaba, the Saatchi & Saatchi London CEO.

The COO role has been created in response to new management responsibilities created by the recent acquisition of the social and experiential agency Outside Line and a new merger, due to be completed in February.

Saatchi & Saatchi has has taken ownership of Publicis Groupe-owned specialist agency Masius, which will be merged with Team Saatchi and renamed Saatchi Masius.

Saatchi Masius brings together the specialist market skills of Masius, the project delivery capability of Team Saatchi and the legendary creative strength of Saatchi & Saatchi in a new company with a specific business model designed to take on a broad spectrum of marketing challenges.

Saatchi Masius will draw on the creative and strategic strengths of Saatchi & Saatchi, but will be structured to address communications challenges in markets not best served by larger creative agencies. It will be led by Chris Dell, the CEO of Masius, and Surrey Garland, the executive creative director.

De Bauw joins Saatchi & Saatchi from Fallon London, where she was the managing director. She has been at Fallon since 2005, working on accounts including Skoda, Cadbury and Orange. She was named head of account management in 2010 and managing director in 2011.

Djaba says: "Since 2007, our business has fundamentally changed, in size, but also in structure, output and capabilities. Despite this growth, we remain committed to ensuring that every member of our management team takes an active role on client business, and Katrien's hiring is part of that pledge. I had the pleasure of working with Katrien for six years at Fallon, and she is an instinctive, experienced and motivating leader who will help steer us through the next phase in our agency's growth and development."

De Bauw adds: "Saatchi & Saatchi has been on an incredible journey over the last 5 years and 2013 will see the agency continue to grow, adding new people and skills. The opportunity to help lead this iconic agency is one I just couldn't pass up. I join after a fantastic 7 years at Fallon that gave me the chance to work with some of the best people in the world, from whom I have learned more than I could have ever hoped."

Masius, which was previously part of the MSLGROUP, will become part of the Saatchi & Saatchi group of agencies. Both Masius' and Team Saatchi's existing staff and clients will join the new agency, which will be based at Saatchi & Saatchi London's headquarters.

Dell says: "It's a fact that not all clients, and not all communications tasks, fit the mould offered by the larger, more established creative agencies. The brief may be for a company, not a product. The audience may be internal, not external. The problem may be larger (or more complicated) than the budget you can allocate to it. The answer may not involve media at all. To us, everything is interesting and in common with our parent company, Nothing is Impossible."

Saatchi & Saatchi's stable of brands includes Saatchi & Saatchi X, the world's leading shopper marketing network and Saatchi & Saatchi S, a global sustainability consulting and communications organisation.


(Photo credit: Campaign)