• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 8, 2008

Interpublic's fledgling Mediabrands organization is beginning to look a lot like those of another agency holding company: Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group. In its most recent move, Interpublic's Mediabrands unit named Elizabeth Herbst-Brady president of Magna, its centralized marketplace intelligence and research operation. Herbst-Brady's last job in the agency world was as head of national broadcast at Starcom, and her appointment is the latest in an ongoing exodus of talent from the Publicis shop to Interpublic.

In May, Interpublic raided Carolyn Dubi, vice president-North American planning director, to become head of print media at Initiative. It was the first major raid Interpublic made on SMG since it recruited Richard Beaven in 2006 to run Initiative. Interpublic had previously hired Nick Brien in 2005 as president-CEO of its Universal McCann unit. Brien, who had been head of Publicis' ARC division, and was a long-time SMG executive, was promoted to president-CEO of Mediabrands in July, a new holding company level post overseeing all of Interpublic's media operations.

Last week, Brien hired SMG communications executive, Joe Benarroch as his vice president-corporate affairs, after ousting Patricia Steele as global director of communications at Universal.

The moves are part of a gradual reengineering and repopulation of Interpublic's media operations that began with Brien and Beaven, but a disproportionate amount of that talent appears to be coming from SMG, an agency some consider best in breed.

As part of that reorganization, another top media executive as quietly left Interpublic.

Rob Fitzgerald, who had been managing director of Initiative North America's East Coast operations and their head of strategy, planning and research, formally left the agency last week.

"I took this decision some time ago and discussed it with others on our North American leadership team as early as March," Fitzgerald tells MediaDailyNews. "We agreed that I would continue on across the summer but in a reduced capacity to give everyone time to try and replace my roles across all the various functions I was leading, as well as find a head of the New York office. We have been very open internally and I believe everyone at Initiative is fully aware of the situation."

He says his decision were both personal and professional, noting, ""I was brought here to help revitalize Initiative North America's planning operation and build a credible strategic core to its offering. The new business success and growing reputation of the agency shows that this has been achieved. Now after 15 years of success in Europe, China, Japan and the US, it just feels the right time to pause and catch a breath.

"I also want to use this time to further explore what the future holds for the kind of strategic approach to planning that I have championed and where best it should be located in the US market. Media agencies? The creative or full service agency environment? Integrated marketing or communication consultants? Even multi-platform media owners and the more traditional management consultants are now doing really interesting work in this space direct with clients."

Interpublic's selection of Herbst-Brady to run Magna, meanwhile, seems an inspired choice. Herbst-Brady, who joins Interpublic from News Corp.'s 20th Television TV syndication unit, has been a long-time TV sales and buying executive skilled in the art of negotiating. That choice is inspired, because Interpublic reorganized Magna following Bill Cella's departure as CEO of that unit last year, and did away with its role as a centralized negotiating unit. As part of that reorganization, Interpublic moved all negotiating responsibilities back to its branded agency units, Universal and Initiative, and said Magna would focus on research, industry analysis and marketplace tracking.

Herbst-Brady tells MDN that, in fact, is her mission as head of the eight-person Magna team, which is best known for the state-of-the-art research reports generated by Steve Sternberg, and economic tracking by industry forecaster Bob Coen and industry analyst Brian Wieser.

"I think that Magna's role is like a management consultancy and our clients are the individual brands that sit inside [Interpublic]," she explains. "We're reactive to their needs."