±±¾©Èü³µpk10

OMD EMEA has appointed Oliver Stroh as chief development officer and Cristina Sagarduy as chief performance officer.

Stroh, who has been chief executive of OMD Germany since 2014, overseeing 900 staff across offices in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Munich, will take on the EMEA role from 1 January. He will have responsibility for the network’s 78 offices in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, working on the strategies of multinational client accounts, as well as helping to drive new business.

Sagarduy’s arrival sees her return to OMD after nine years working outside the agency. In her new position, she will head performance and tap into her digital experience across search, programmatic, social and affiliate marketing.

Stroh will be succeeded in his existing role by Susanne Grundmann, who is currently chief strategy officer at OMD Germany.

Guy Marks, who was made chief executive of OMD EMEA in 2018, said that the new roles would help the agency "deliver better decisions, faster".

He continued: "I feel very privileged to be able to welcome someone as experienced as Oliver into the role of chief development officer. He has an unrivalled knowledge of our business. He is uniquely qualified to take those learnings and export that highly successful behaviour to all our markets in the region."

Sagarduy was most recently vice-president of performance marketing at automotive business MotorK. Before that, she spent four years at Net-a-Porter, where she oversaw the in-housing of the brand’s performance marketing. She left OMD at the end of 2010, having been EMEA managing director of search for two-and-a-half years.

Marks said that Sagarduy brought with her "a different perspective to the agency, particularly regarding in-housing, where she has seen the best and the worst close up".

He added: "Her challenge is to work with our client and strategic leaders to elevate the performance mentality and behaviours, ensuring they are embedded throughout the agency."

OMD said the appointments were made on the back of strong business performance across the network, which was ranked number one out of six in 2019 projected global network billings (at $19.6bn) by COMvergence.

Stroh and Sagarduy's appointments complete Marks’ senior additions to OMD EMEA’s leadership team. The duo join recent chief client officer additions Kelly Parker and Andy Tomkins and chief strategy officer Mark Murray-Jones.

Earlier this year, Manning Gottlieb OMD chief executive Tim Pearson was appointed to chief executive across OMD Group UK.