According to sources close to ITV, Smith, who was director of marketing and strategy at British Gas before joining Accenture in 2006, has been interviewed for the position in recent weeks and ITV is at "fairly advanced stages" of negotiating a deal.
Sources say ITV chief executive Michael Grade has been keen to hire an advertising client for the role with slick presentational skills who can "schmooze clients and make them spend lots of money with ITV" in the same vein as Ron Miller, the legendary LWT sales director. This would involve personal pitches to the likes of Stuart Rose at M&S and Philip Green at Arcadia.
Mike Moran, the former Toyota GB commercial director, is also believed to have been interviewed for the role, but it is understood that ITV favours Smith.
Smith left British Gas after four years in November 2005 when his role was reduced from overseeing marketing and advertising to strategy alone. He joined Accenture in July 2006. Previous roles include head of marketing communications at Alliance & Leicester and managing director of Sekonda. He was also chairman of the Marketing Society until April this year.
Smith's first task may be to reassess internal team structures to resolve a lack of clarity across the sales operation. The managing director of sales and marketing will report to group financial director John Cresswell and will have three people reporting to him: Gary Digby, managing director of ITV Customer Relations; David Pemsel, marketing chief; and Nicky Buss, advertisement development director.
Ian McCulloch left ITV in May after 27 years' service. Names previously linked to the role include Virgin Media content chief Malcolm Wall, Barclays group marketing director Jim Hytner and MindShare Worldwide chief executive Dominic Proctor.
The new hire will join at a time when ITV is enjoying a rebound in its fortunes. ITV1's July all-adult viewing impacts were up 23% on 2006. Its share of impacts for January to July were down only 4.6%, compared to a fall of 10% last year.
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