Rachel spent four years at the above-the-line agency, after moving there from OgilvyOne. At O&M, he worked almost exclusively on the Ford account, but was also involved with Lucozade Sport.
He will report to co-founder and managing director Janet McKay, who said: "We have an ongoing commitment to grow and strengthen our planning function and now we have all the elements in place to really pursue our goals. Ben has all the qualities and requisite experience for this vital role."
Rachel was behind Kylie Minogue becoming the face of Ford's StreetKa model, which saw both appear on the front page of The Sun. He was also involved in the development of interactive TV commercials for Mondeo and Focus C-Max, and Ford's viral strategy.
Before this, Rachel worked as senior planner at OgilvyOne where his achievements included the repositioning of Handbag.com and the restructuring of the Bank of Scotland's customer communications.
Clark McKay & Walpole has been bulking up since it was acquired by marketing services group Media Square in September. It now employs 85 people and last month opened a 12-strong Leeds agency in a rebranding of fellow Media Square agency Banc's Leeds outpost as Clark McKay & Walpole North.
Rachel joins former OgilvyOne data specialist Tim Green, who was appointed head of data planning in January. Green was head of data strategy for Ogilvy's Jigsaw Consortium business for data shared by Unilever, Cadbury and Kimberly-Clark.
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