• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 4, 2013

John Swift has been appointed CEO and President North America Investment at Omnicom Media Group, a new position at the company overseeing all investment activity at the group which includes OMD and PHD.

The move was quietly made in September more than a month after Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe announced plans to merge.

The move puts in place a post at OMG similar to the one held by Rino Scanzoni at GroupM—North American Chief Investment Officer.

At Publicis Groupe, the setup is different and there is no holding company level investment head-the top buyers at the main agency networks Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia continue to report solely to their respective CEOs.

In a memo announcing the OMG move internally, Page Thompson, North American CEO for OMG stated that it was being made in part to “assure our ability to deliver the best pricing and innovative ideas to our clients.”

Previously Swift was head of Integrated Communications at OMG. Before that he was executive vice president and managing partner of the Eastern region at PHD. Earlier he was Director, National TV Buying at OMD. He joined Omnicom as a TV buyer at BBDO in 1988.