• by Joe Mandese , February 1, 2008

Interpublic Thursday announced the retirement of Alec Gerster, one of the last of Madison Avenue's old guard media directors, as chairman-CEO of its Initiative Worldwide unit, and promoted Richard Beaven to succeed him. Beaven, the former Publicis Group media wunderkind who has worked magic transforming Initiative into a new business powerhouse, and attracting high caliber talent over the past year, is expected to name his successor to run Initiative North America in the next several weeks, and it could be someone from outside the Interpublic family.

"I considered all the options and am very confident of my decision," Beaven told MediaDailyNews late Thursday, sounding like he has already made up his mind and is simply waiting for some ink to dry. Beaven, who is known to still have close ties with many senior executives within Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group, where he was part of the MediaVest management team before joining Interpublic, also has a bounty of internal candidates to draw from, including two bi-coastal chiefs overseeing North American operations: The West Coast's Alan Cohen; and the East Coast's Rob FitzGerald. Both are also key strategic players. Cohen also oversees Initiative's highly successful Innovations and Entertainment unit, and embodies the spirit of new media thinking that has been winning Initiative much of its new business. FitzGerald, is the agency's strategic planning chief, overseeing much of its high-level consumer research and thinking.

Beaven also has some other powerful candidates to draw from, including Chief Activation Officer Tim Spengler, who is also a likely candidate.

"We have a matrix of good people," Beaven said, demurring on whether the new North American chief would be an inside or outside candidate.

Beaven's ascent within Interpublic, meanwhile, is symbolic of the change within its media organization, and within the world of media services at large. Like Nick Brien, the forceful head of Universal McCann, Beaven is a British ex-patriot known for media and organizational innovation. Beaven, in fact, will be working closely with Brien who is heading a task force that is restructuring all of Interpublic's media operations with an eye toward finding back office efficiencies and more collaborative operating synergies between the shops. Unlike the trend taking place within other big agency holding companies, Interpublic executives maintain no consolidation among Interpublic's media operations are planned. Just this week, WPP's GroupM unit announced a massive reorganization of the local broadcast buying groups of MindShare, Mediaedge:cia and MediaCom, consolidating them into two GroupM level operating units.

"What we are considering first and foremost is what's in the client's interest," said Beaven, emphasizing that any operating efficiencies gleaned by the task force would be reinvested in tools, resources and personnel that help Interpublic media agencies become more effective for their clients.

Gerster, who joined Initiative in 2002 to oversee worldwide operations in 58 markets and a global workforce of over 3,000 employees, has been one of the best known media executives on Madison Avenue for the past quarter century. Prior to joining Initiative, he was a 30-year vet of Grey Global Group, where he served as CEO of MediaCom Worldwide.

Before joining Initiative in 2006, Beaven was executive vice resident-managing director at MediaVest USA, responsible for Starcom MediaVest Group's Procter & Gamble communications planning assignment. Among the executives he has helped recruit to Initiative is Sarah Power, who led the portion of P&G's communications planning account handled by Carat North America.

Prior to working on P&G, Beaven served as senior vice president-management director, on Coca-Cola also at MediaVest.