February 2008, London, UK – Pleon London has added three strategic senior managers to its growing 'Talent Pool' of expertise across the consumer and business-to-business sectors. Dr. Percy Smend, will take on a duel role as Pleon's European Marketing Practice Leader as well as Director of the Business-to-Business (B2B) Practice in London; Mark de Wolf has signed on as Associate Director of B2B London; and Samuel Hall has been hired as Associate Director, Business-to-Consumer (B2C), London.
Commenting on the appointments, Jennifer Paavola, CEO Pleon London says the new talents are expected to propel Pleon's ability to tailor services across industry sector lines by bringing the London office a broader bench-strength of backgrounds and creativity. "Our aim is to create a 'Talent Pool' of multi-disciplinarians from a variety of backgrounds who approach client challenges with a clean slate and come up with original and compelling campaigns. These new appointments are the culmination of a new roster of recent hires to further align Pleon London with the capabilities of our European offices."
These three most recent hires bring with a wealth of experience to Pleon:
Smend hails from BBDO Consulting where he led the telecoms and media practice. Born in Germany but educated in Devon and Tokyo, his diverse background includes consulting on merger communications for financial services clients as well as a commercialisation strategy for a football club. His goal will be to elevate PR to the board level alongside other disciplines that traditionally win a larger chunk of the budget. Smend observes, "PR is a highly visible and effective element of a brand communication strategy, but practitioners need to understand the wider context in which it operates."
De Wolf comes from Spreckley Associates where he served as a senior account director. He is a former journalist with a long track record in technology communications for clients such as Cisco, Hitachi Data Systems, Oracle, Orange, Seagate and LogicaCMG Global Telcoms. Echoing Paavola's desire to update the agency’s B2B service de Wolf states, "I started PR in the dot.com boom when technology stories were intrinsically hot. Today, tech brands have to be smarter about communicating their relevance to business audiences."
Halls fills out the new line-up joining from Octopus Communications where he served as a Senior Consultant. As an Associate Director, Halls will focus on growing the Consumer Practice as well as play an active role on fully integrated client projects. "Prescriptive solutions are no answer for complex and multi-dimensional client challenges," said Halls. "What excites me about joining Pleon is being part of such a diverse and talented group of people that are able to understand and address that complexity. I'm looking forward to delivering PR campaigns that reflect the strategic considerations of our clients."