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Agsis: (noun) the protection, backing, or support of a particular person or organisation.

All too often, the question for Aegis clients over the past year has been: just who is protecting, backing and supporting their media efforts?

After a raft of high-level moves, culminating with the resignation of chief executive Doug Flynn, the media network faces a changing global media landscape in which the agency side of the equation is being concentrated in the hands of a decreasing number of giants. At the same time, Aegis has remained basically a media shop – albeit a big one – with a strong research arm but no creative capability.

And while the agency network has drawn a successor for Flynn from the ranks of its board, other key appointments remain to be made in its UK operation.

The announcement that Flynn was swapping media for killing vermin – he is taking over as chief executive of Rentokil Initial – was not unexpected in many quarters of the industry.

Raising eyebrows

Replacing Flynn is Robert Lerwill, an Aegis non-executive director and a man with a strong financial background with Cable & Wireless and WPP – and someone who might be better suited to the job of pacifying difficult shareholders than Flynn, who had the odd run-in with the City.

Flynn's exit hit the headlines just days after Colin Mills, managing director of Aegis owned Carat, left that agency – six months after privately deciding he was leaving the company.

And, within only a few days of Flynn's departure, the president of Carat USA, Charlie Rutman, left the company to join MPG as CEO of that agency's North American operation When top bods start leaving any company, in any industry, a few eyebrows are bound to rise.

These two leavers may have affected two very different parts of the business, but the question has to be asked: "Is this merely a changing of the guard or has the agency hit a bump in the road?"

Certainly Flynn had a bumpy ride during the latter part of his reign at Aegis. The network's Antipodean boss suffered the ignominy of the stockholders rejecting his remuneration package just months before. They voted against the terms of Flynn's potential severance pay – two years' salary plus twice his annual bonus.

In addition to the remuneration debacle, Aegis has been locked in a court case with KR Media, the company set up by the two former Aegis Media Europe joint chief executives, Eryck Rebbouh and Bruno Kemoun. Aegis accused the pair, known as The Twins, of poaching Carat's clients and the case is still in the French courts.

Whether Aegis has a legal leg to stand on against KR Media remains to be seen, but the loss of The Twins had been bad enough for Flynn – the pair are highly respected in the industry and were rumoured to have left after clashes with the former chief exec.

KR Media is already operating in France and is backed by a 20% stake from WPP.

Return of The Twins

The Twins – famed for their high levels of client service – have shown off their prowess by taking the £31m Louis Vuitton account out of Carat. Now, with offices at Mind Share, under the moniker Team UK Media, Rebbouh and Kemoun might yet hit the UK scene.

It's interesting to note that when The Twins were Mills' bosses, he took French lessons.

When Jerry Buhlman was named as chief executive in their place, Mark Craze, chief executive for UK and Ireland, headed for the door too, unhappy with the snub. Craze too was quite close to The Twins.

All of these departures hint at a less than steady vessel and Flynn, the proverbial captain abandoning ship, does little to demonstrate otherwise. As the new man at the helm, Lerwill could be the one to guide the network into calmer waters.

A chief executive with a strong financial background, feeling from those in the know is that he could be more adept at dealing with the shareholders than Flynn, a man with a newspaper background including Murdoch's News International.

According to one insider, Flynn was "not your typical City type" and "Lerwill will be able to handle the City better".

But, likewise, the question of how Lerwill will cope with strategic decisions remains an issue.

Bob Willott, one of the founders of Willott Kingston Smith and still acting as a consultant to the chartered accountant, raises this point: "The question for Robert [Lerwill] is: ‘Is this a job for someone financially orientated or strategy orientated?'

"We'll have to see how good he is with the strategy of the company."

This seems a fair point, but Amanda Merron, a current partner at WKS, perhaps makes an even more pertinent one: that when it comes to financial men becoming network bosses you have only to look at the "shining example in his former boss at WPP". Take a bow Sir Martin Sorrell.

And when it comes to strategy, Lerwill has already said that he is not going to take any immediate strategic changes so soon after climbing into the saddle.

"Broadly speaking the benefits of me joining are... well, I've been part of a team to determine the strategy. I'm not sure I'm going to come in and make radical changes when we're growing organically very fast."

The alternative

Lerwill insists Aegis' place is giving clients an "alternative to big companies owned by big marketing services groups".

And at present this alternative means a group where research and digital communications are key ingredients.

Under Flynn, research arm Synovate received substantial investment and he also recently oversaw the creation of Isobar, the world's largest combined digital offering.

Combined with this, Flynn had been following a strategy of organic growth and small acquisitions. Most recently, Aegis acquired US search marketing company I prospect for £25m, which will form part of Isobar.

This is the strategy decided upon for Aegis and Lerwill says there are "no major changes in direction anticipated. I would be foolish to be talking about spoiling a winning recipe."

The new boss also insists that the company is "responding to what clients need now".

Not everyone is in agreement with this .Merron says: "They seem to be buying research, direct and digital business with a view to focusing on the stratification of their target audience and accessing them."

But, she adds: "It's going to have to buy an awful lot to buy up that middle ground."

"With the sort of business it's buying, there aren't any obvious big wins that will take it up to the next tier."

Responsibility

Willott voices a similar opinion: "The amount of money spent on buying companies has not resulted in return, and Doug Flynn has to take some responsibility for that."

Merron concurs: "The proof doesn't seem to be there in the results."

Whether Lerwill does anything to arrest these sorts of opinions remains to be seen. But what he will have to take on board is Aegis' position against other global networks.

One of its problems is its lack of a creative wing. This would have been key for the global pitch last year for the HSBC business, which went to WPP.

Aegis did not even get on the shortlist.

Also, the business does not have the same presence in North America that the other networks have, something that may hold it back as a global operator.

American foothold

One senior agency boss of a rival network agrees with this perspective on Aegis: "Carat is still a very powerful European network, but it hasn't really cracked it outside of Europe. In North America it is still a minor player. It doesn't have a roster of true worldwide clients and it won't until it establishes a foothold in North America."

However, another insider offers a different point of view: "You can never appeal to all clients, but if you've got a differentiation that appeals to 10% then it's to die for. You don't have to have a proposition that every client will go for."

On the lack of a creative wing the insider adds, "That's been overplayed. Aegis' strategy is well placed – it's all about implementation."

And on the policy of small acquisition there is a very simple but important point: "They make small acquisitions because they can't make massive acquisitions."

Closer to the UK scene, Nigel Sharrocks, Aegis chief executive in the UK and Ireland, and Neil Jones, the acting MD at Carat in place o fMills, are concentrating on repositioning the agency.

Jones, who has been at the agency for 13 years, says: "When I joined we were very buying driven."

However, Jones insists that although some may still see Carat as just a buying powerhouse: "The reality is very different to the perception. Part of that is diversifying services."

Sharrocks also explains: "One of the problems of Carat is other agencies had positioned themselves as: ‘We're not Carat'.

"Now we want to get the company back to thought leadership, setting the agenda."

The UK and Ireland boss also adds: "The business is in good shape. We had a record year last year."

And of course he is right. Last year in a frantic week in October Carat retained the £31.5m account for Diageo in Britain, won the £20mGE Consumer Finance Home Lending business and the European Lego account, worth £35m.

And let's not forget Aegis' second string agency, Vizeum, which picked up the £32mpan- European account for Panasonic.

Turbulent time

Whether these wins for Carat will continue without Mills at the helm is unclear. But perhaps the situation at its sister agency provides some clue. Vizeum has been without a full-time MD since January last year, with operations director Chris Boothby running the agency since then. But no one can complain about their performance with the likes of Panasonic in the bag.

The past two weeks have been turbulent for Aegis and Carat, but it would be wrong to automatically put the departure of Flynn and Mills together and see signs of a troubled company.

Their roles were unrelated and Mills resigned six months before Flynn left.

Nevertheless, Lerwill and Sharrocks certainly have some questions to answer when it comes to how to take the network on – and, sooner rather than later, the new team will have to come up with the right answer.

Financial people at the helm: the pros and cons

Over the past month, two global agency networks have brought in new chief executives with financial backgrounds: Before Robert Lerwill took over at Aegis Michael Roth took on the CEO role at Interpublic. Here's what some industry watchers and insiders say:

Olivier Wolfe, head of media sector corporate finance, Pricewaterhouse Coopers: "Well there's plenty of them in the marketplace, starting with Sir Martin Sorrell [at WPP]. The trick is to bring in a guy who can delegate the right creative talent, harnessing creative strength and bringing financial discipline. From time to time it is helpful to change from one sort to another – it can be good for business."

Steve Allen, chief executive, Mediacom: "I think you have to distinguish between the holding company and the operating company. There is no reason why a holding company shouldn't be run by someone with a financial background. They decide the sales and acquisitions of the business and these are prerequisite skills for these positions. Often advertising experts are not qualified for making these decisions."

Steve Booth, chief executive, BLM: "The scale of the global networks means they are led by people who have a strong financial focus rather than creative focus. The challenge for networks is how they can manage the challenge of meeting their financial needs and still be creatively led."

Andy Sloan, chief executive, All Response Media: "There are some very good financial people that have a fantastic understanding of the creative and media challenges. And there are some excellent media practitioners who are very financially and commercially savvy. If agencies can attract this talent, they have the potential to thrive."