He takes over the chairman role from Alan Bishop, who left Saatchi & Saatchi in January 2001. Roberts currently divides his time between New Zealand, where he has a home in Auckland, and Saatchi & Saatchi's offices around the world.
At the same time as taking the chairman role, Roberts has shaken up the senior management of Saatchi & Saatchi's US operations, with Scott Gilbert moving from California to New York, where he will head the office. Gilbert previously ran the 300-strong Saatchi & Saatchi office in Torrance, California, which handles the Toyota account.
Marianne Bess, a national group account director in the Southern California office, will move to Sydney, where she will become the general manager on the Toyota account for Australia. She will be replaced by Tim Murphy, who was previously director of retail.
This time last year, Roberts was streamlining Saatchi & Saatchi's senior management network, with the departure of Peter Cullinane, executive vice-president worldwide, as well as Bishop. Both had been based at the network's global New York headquarters. Bishop subsequently took up the role of chief executive of COI Communications.
Roberts made the leap from client to agency in 1997, when he left the Australian brewer Lion Nathan to head Saatchi & Saatchi.
The agency recently lost its London creative director, Australian David Droga, who was offered the most senior creative post at Publicis by Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy.
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