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Initiative Media has strengthened its senior management line-up by

poaching Ita Murphy, a board director at the Media Centre, as its new

media director.

Murphy is the first major mainstream media appointment that Initiative’s

chief executive, Phil Georgiadis, has made from outside the Initiative

fold.

Murphy, the director responsible for new business at the Media Centre,

is expected to join Initiative in early October.

She will work alongside Initiative’s two existing media directors, Nick

Daly and Graham Appleby.

Georgiadis said: ‘I remember coming up against Ita in a pitch for

Walkers’ media when I was at WCRS. The Media Centre won the business and

the client said that she had played a significant part in its triumph.’

At Initiative, Murphy will take over responsibility for Van den Bergh

Foods and Birds Eye Wall’s. ‘Ita will help us sharpen our client focus,

while building on our improved buying, research and creative resources,’

Georgiadis added.

Murphy said that it was Georgiadis’s management style that first

attracted her to Initiative: ‘Phil is a visionary bloke and is trying to

do things differently. He’s into total communication and that is

something that really excites me.’

Murphy joined DMB&B’s media department - which became the Media Centre -

in 1989. She led the Media Centre’s successful pitches for Walkers in

1993 and Quaker in 1995 and was promoted to the board in 1994.

The Media Centre has confirmed that it will not be directly replacing

Murphy, but will instead be restructuring its own management line-up

within the next few weeks.