• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 5, 2007

Kaki Hinton, one of the marketing world's best known media and advertising executives, has joined Havas' MPG unit as executive vice president-managing director on its recently won Sears account. In a related move, MPG announced it has also hired David Handelman, the long-time strategic planning director on the Sears account at its former shop, MindShare, to serve as executive vice president-managing director on Kmart.

The moves are part of a senior talent hiring binge MPG has been making ever since winning the blue chip accounts earlier this year, and come at a time when many top media shops are finding it difficult to recruit and retain talent. During an industry conference this week, several top agency executives said the draw of aggressive recruiting tactics from high flying digital media firms like Google have exacerbated the problem.

That doesn't appear to have stymied MPG, which expects to name other key executives to its burgeoning team soon.

At MPG, Hinton will oversee strategic planning and buying for Sears. Prior to joining MPG, she was vice president-advertising services at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Group. Before that she was director of advertising services at Warner-Lambert and Pfizer, which was ultimately acquired by J&J.

In addition to being an important client, Hinton presided over the Association of National Advertisers' influential Television Advertising Committee.