The news emerged as Toby Hoare, the head of the Bates London agency, was appointed to lead the network's European operations.
Bill Whitehead, who heads the network's North American operations, is also chief operating officer of Bates Worldwide. But an industry source said: "There's nobody currently pulling the network together. The post will almost certainly be filled by an outsider. There is no internal candidate."
The successful candidate faces a huge task of driving the Bates network forward at a time when it is becoming increasingly marginalised by the communication "supergroups" which now dominate global advertising.
Since the loss of its Mars business in the mid-90s, British American Tobacco remains Bates' only truly global client.
Hoare, the Bates UK group chief executive, takes over as chairman of Bates Europe from Jean de Yturbe, who becomes deputy to Michael Bungey, the chief executive of Cordiant.
Hoare's promotion is seen as an acknowledgement of his success at transforming the London agency, which was plagued by internal strife and a poor new-business record when he took over in November 1999.
He will continue leading Bates UK while taking extra responsibility for some 30 offices in 25 countries in Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa.
De Yturbe, who has been European chairman for seven years, will switch to a new role sustaining relationships with Cordiant's global clients and helping to leverage more international business out of local offices.
Bates Europe, whose major accounts include Sear cars and BAT, has recently had its client list augmented by Wella and Allied-Domecq. However, most of its business is confined to local markets.
Bungey said: "Toby came to us with a very good track record and has shown enormous energy in turning around the UK while gaining the respect of everybody in Bates. He has firm ideas on how things should be done and we want to see his energy being put to use in some other European countries."
Hoare said: "The reality is that we're not suddenly going to win Procter & Gamble. But there's lots we can do to shift the balance."
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)