He will be responsible for Euro RSCG's global intranet and extranet, global email, financial reporting, purchasing and infrastructure consolidation.
He will report to chairman and chief executive Jim Heekin, who was appointed to his role following the sudden retirement of Bob Schmetterer last week, and chief financial officer Rob Parker.
Patel was most recently at Dimension Data Integration Services in New York, where he held the position of vice-president of solution architecture, responsible for creating and delivering new technology-based client offerings.
Prior to that he worked at companies including Agency.com, iTraffic, Conduit Communications, Forte and Citicorp in the US and Europe.
According to Heekin: "Technology is vital to every facet of our business and Ritesh will bring a high level of capability and in-depth experience to an essential role at Euro RSCG."
The agency has gone through massive changes under the orders of parent company Havas as part of moves to drastically improve its performance for investors. The company has embarked on a programme of mergers and closures in an attempt to cut costs.
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