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The moves follow the news earlier this month, first revealed by Media Week, that Clive Howse, joint managing director, and Lee Boden, former head of search at MediaCom, are leaving the firm to set up their own consultancy.

The agency will be based around the premise of management information, with both Howse and Boden having a strong grounding in how firms can use data and direct response to their advantage.

Joint managing director Darren Barber will become sole managing director of Direct MediaCom when Howse leaves in October. He is creating a six-strong senior management board, which will sit on the main MediaCom board, and is revamping its associate director board.

The senior Direct board will comprise Nancy Lengthorn, Simon Ingram, Rachel Hall and Michelle Blenkinsop, plus Barber. All were previously associate directors and are being promoted to directors. The sixth will be a digital director, whom Barber hopes to recruit within two months.

Meanwhile, Barber is refreshing MediaCom's associate director board, which will sit below the main Direct MediaCom board. Those promoted this week to associate director are Mark Jackson, previously media manager, and Louisa McLaughlin, previously group head. They join existing associate directors Ben Cunningham, who joined from Aegis agency Vizeum earlier in the year where he was head of direct, Nicola Ashley, from RBS, and Tim Samuels, who joined from Zed Media in April. Craig Mytton, head of search, is also an associate director.

Mytton joined the agency earlier this month from Cheeze. He will be responsible for expanding the next phase of development of MediaCom's search offering.

Additionally, there are two promotions to group heads - Steve Jones and Suzanne Barber - who were both previously media managers.

Barber said the creation of the new ops boards is part of the wider move at WPP-owned MediaCom to create an ops board at its constituent units.

He said: "This restructure is about deepening our client links. We are confident that direct response is going be largely recession-proof, so we expect this new structure to help capitalise on our prospects."