• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 29, 2007

First Jon Mandel. Then Joe Uva. Now Steve Grubbs. Madison Avenue lost another of its legendary media buyers Wednesday when Omnicom announced Grubbs was stepping down as president-CEO of Omnicom's PHD North America operations to become CEO of Omnicom's Fuse Sports and Entertainment Group North America operations.

Grubbs' move comes one month after Joe Uva stepped down as CEO of Omnicom's OMD unit to become CEO of Spanish-language media company Univision. The departures, taken with those of other big-name media buyers, signal something of a mini exodus from Madison Avenue, also impacting top buying positions at Interpublic, Publicis and even WPP, including:

* November 2005: Bob Flood bolts the top buying job at Publicis' Optimedia unit to join MTV Networks.
* April 2006: Elizabeth Herbst-Brady leaves the top buying job at Publicis' Starcom unit for News Corp.'s Twentieth Television unit.
* October 2006: Bill Cella steps down as CEO of Interpublic's Magna Global Media unit to become vice chairman of Interpublic's DraftFCB.
* November 2006: Jon Mandel leaves WPP's MediaCom unit to join Nielsen.
* February 2007: Joe Uva steps down as CEO of Omnicom's OMD unit to join Univision.
* March 2007: Steve Grubbs steps down as CEO of Omnicom's PHD North America operations to run Fuse.

By any measure, that's an exceptional amount of turnover of top media buyer positions in a relatively short period of time--and in some cases represents a brain drain just as Madison Avenue is facing some fundamental shifts in the way media is bought and sold, and the way it is used by consumers.

In some cases--such as Omnicom's Grubbs or Interpublic's Cella--these top buyers are remaining a part of the family, and will continue to play a role in leading media strategy. Cella, for example, serves on Interpublic's Media Council, which oversees Magna's operations.

In fact, Grubbs' decision to leave PHD was part of a long-term succession plan that was put in place when Omnicom hired Matt Seiler as Grubbs' No. 2, according to Omnicom insiders.

Meanwhile, Grubbs' appointment at Fuse signals a reorganization of Omnicom's sports and entertainment assets.

In a related move, Robert Riesenberg, CEO of Full Circle Entertainment, was given the additional responsibility of president of Fuse--reporting to Grubbs, who reports in turn to Daryl Simm, chairman-CEO of Omnicom Media Group.

Simm recently assumed some of the responsibilities handled by Uva, including oversight of OMD's global operations, although speculation is that Omnicom would eventually fill Uva's old role.

As for Grubbs' senior statesman role as a member of Madison Avenue's media buying elite, that remains unclear. Over the years, Grubbs has led some important industry initiatives, including overseeing the American Association of Advertising Agencies' and Association of National Advertisers' annual Commercial Monitoring Report, before that was officially retired. He has also been Madison Avenue's front man on the eBay Media Marketplace project--an ambitious and controversial system that will test an online exchange for buying and selling television later this year.

Grubbs has taken a high-profile role in that initiative lately, emceeing a controversial panel at a recent AAAAs conference, where he and other executives expressed frustration at how difficult it has become to convince sell-siders to participate in a test launch of the system. But cable selling executives in attendance took exception to what they thought was a characterization of them as obstacles, even though they had not yet viewed a pilot version of the system.

Grubbs joins former Wal-Mart marketer Julie Roehm--who first raised the idea of an online trading system--as a top buy-side executive to leave the e-marketplace stage.