• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, July 24, 2015

WPP agency network Y&R has appointed Andrew Dimitriou president of Y&R Europe. Dimitriou is a 16-year veteran of the global creative shop. He reports directly to Y&R Global CEO David Sable. 

The position is new, as the agency has rejiggered its geographic organization a bit, splitting its EMEA (Europe Middle East & Africa) region into Europe and Middle East/Africa. The last person to run Europe was Jaime Prieto when it was still part of the shop’s EMEA region. He left in 2011. 

Dimitriou has served in various posts at Y&R across four continents in the network. Most recently, he served as the European lead for WPP’s Red Fuse, an agency dedicated to serving client Colgate-Palmolive. There, he led the efforts for C-P across all their brands in 33 European markets. 

Earlier, he was the global managing director on Hills Pet Nutrition, which involved VML in Kansas City, and Y&R offices in Prague, Tokyo and Sydney. 

Commenting on the promotion, Sable said: “Over the past few years, our focus in Europe has been on deepening and strengthening our position in local markets, which has resulted in a new vitality and momentum market to market. This is the right time for Andrew to come in and leverage both our network’s individual and collective strengths.” 

In his new role Dimitriou, a native of Australia, will work closely with the leaders in the region to evolve and help grow Y&R’s European offering. “I am looking forward to building on the momentum that we are feeling across the region,” he said.

Dimitriou began his Y&R career in account management, eventually moving to new business development at Y&R New York. He has worked on a broad range of categories, including technology, telecommunications, finance, pharmaceutical, and beer and on blue chip companies like Xerox, and Merck. He also served as client services director in Latin America.