• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 22, 2008

David Verklin, arguably Madison Avenue's most colorful media man for much of he past decade, is out as CEO of Aegis Media, and his protégé and hand-picked successor Sarah Fay has been named to replace him as part of an amicable transition plan that began more than a year ago when Verklin began planning his next act. That act will not be to take the helm of Omnicom's OMD unit, or WPP's formative DaVinci project, and it's more than likely that it won't even involve Madison Avenue, Verklin told MediaDailyNews late Monday in one of a series of briefings the Aegis Media team held with the press.

Verklin, who officially steps down at the end of this year, and will be available to consult Aegis for several months after that, said his first move would be to "take a little time off." Verklin, one of Madison Avenue's highest paid media executives over the past decade, has already cashed in millions in Aegis stock, and stands to rake in significantly more with his remaining options, especially if the company finally goes into play, as some expect it to. His next act, he said, would likely be in media, but not on the agency side.

In a similar move, Alec Gerster, who stepped down earlier this year as the long-time head of Interpublic's Initiative Worldwide unit, resurfaced as chief marketing officer of Navic, a technology firm that is one of the leading developers of interactive TV and addressable TV advertising. Before taking command of Initiative, Gerster was the long-time media chief at Grey Advertising, and head of its MediaCom unit (before it was sold to WPP Group), and was part of the team that took a strategic stake in Visible World, a company that has developed a digital asset management system for producing addressable TV advertising.

Interestingly, Verklin has also played a close role in advising a Navic competitor. For the past several years, Verklin has been on the board of Invidi, an addressable TV advertising firm that recently received significant investments from WPP's GroupM unit, and Motorola. GroupM CEO Irwin Gotlieb was also named to the Invidi board.

Verklin has long been passionate about the rapid emergence of digital media technologies and the impact they are having on transforming the relationships between consumers and brands, and between agencies, advertisers and the media. A year ago, he published "Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here," a guidebook for the digital revolution that was co-written by late journalist and author Bernice Kanner.

It was at about that time that Verklin says he approached Aegis Media Global CEO Mainardo de Nardis about a transition plan. They agreed to announce the plan Monday, because it marked Verklin's tenth anniversary with Aegis.

Aside from the symbolism of the dates, Verklin said he also wanted to stick around to see another transition through: The fulfillment of Aegis' so-called "Carat 2.0" plan, which was the first by a major agency holding company to merge its digital agency, Carat Fusion, with its general media operations, Carat. In the months since Aegis unveiled that plan, others, including Publicis and WPP Group, have followed suit with similar organizational integrations.

The formation of Carat 2.0 also set Sarah Fay's ascendancy in motion. Fay, a long-time Boston media executive who began in the B-to-B and direct response media space, and who created Carat Fusion, had already been identified by Verklin as his heir apparent. Nine months ago, he put that plan into motion, naming Fay CEO of Carat US, and bumping her No. 2, Scott Sorokin, to president. The move followed a lackluster run for Carat, and the ouster of its previous chief, Ray Warren, and though the agency hasn't been on a new business streak in the U.S., the Fay and Sorokin team have gotten good reviews for managing the integration of the digital and traditional media operations, and for boosting the moral of Carat and its esteem on the street.

"This has been a very smooth kind of transition," says Fay. "David has nurtured me to take on a little more, a little more, and I already had 70% of the company that I was responsible for." In her new role as CEO of Aegis Media North America, Fay picks up responsibility for all of Aegis Media's operations in Canada, as well as oversight of its Velocity, Copernicus, and Posterscope units. She already was CEO for Isobar in North America.

As part of the reorganization, Aegis Media split its Americas operations in to two separate regional divisions for North America and Latin America. The Latin American operations will report directly to de Nardis.

Verklin dismisses speculation that his departure was tied in anyway to perceptions that Aegis Media, and its Carat operations, are languishing in terms of growth.

"We grew by 25% last year, and we've been growing at an annual compound rate of 21% over the past decade," he says. "To lay my departure on Wal-Mart, or Warner Bros. or anything else is just not accurate. That's baseball, you win some accounts, you lose some accounts."

Verklin, who turned 52 on April 1st, adds that his decision to step down after 10 years has the "symmetry of numbers" that "any media planner should appreciate," and that he is, "ready to get repotted. A decade is a great time. I'm ready to move on and do something else."