Brown creates a new era in the PHD story

Black Country girl Philippa Brown can't help showing her frustration. The Wolverhampton-born, comprehensive-educat- ed acting chief executive of PHD UK and full-time chief executive of Omnicom Media Group is frustrated that every time the subject of PHD crops up, the focus falls on the charismatic trio that founded it - David Pattison, Nick Horswell and Jonathan Durden - rather than what the agency stands for in 2008.

She points out that 75% of the current PHD staff have never even met the eponymous trio that set up the agency in 1990.

"We don't actually talk about the history of PHD; the founders aren't mentioned in our credentials. Things have moved on," she says.

"I appreciate that I've taken on a business set on solid foundations, but I don't feel the ghosts of the founders around the place, because people [here] don't talk about them."

Burgeoning portfolio
Brown prefers to concentrate on her "fantastic management team" at PHD and 20 new clients won in 2008, worth about £50m in billings.

PHD is also on the pitch lists for Cadbury, E.ON and a National Health lottery project, and is on the verge of adding Saga to its AA planning and buying business. As usual however, Carat is fighting hard in the post-pitch negotiations, which will test Brown's professed refusal to take on business at any cost.

"We never give away services for free," she insists. "We pulled out of the BT pitch [late last year]. They indicated what we needed to do to win the business and we weren't prepared to do that. We have more value in what we deliver and I'm not going to hold the business to ransom."

Partly as a reaction to this pressure, Brown is driving additional revenue through the group's burgeoning branded entertainment and content, sports marketing, and econometric modelling divisions. A digital creative offer is also on the horizon.

Brown has recruited Hugh Cameron from Freud Communications as chief strategy officer, and former ITV1 marketing controller Euan Hudghton as head of marketing and new business.

Creating a new phase
She is building phase three of the PHD UK story, with phase two comprising the Tess Alps/Morag Blazey/Louise Jones/Mark Holden period, which ended in January when Blazey left the agency and Brown stepped in as acting chief executive.

Given that Brown and Blazey's roles were once reversed, with Brown working for Blazey at advertising agency BBH, perhaps this wasn't the greatest of surprises.

The full-time PHD chief executive job is still up for grabs. Although Brown has talked to various people, no appointment is imminent and no-one has been offered the job. Brown is not worried that candidates will be frightened off by her being in situ, but many feel her successor will come from outside the media agency world.

"We're not rushing into appointing someone," she says. "I'm enjoying the role: we're successful and I'm bringing in good people. I also have a very talented managing director in Daren Rubins. The person I'm bringing in has to be a big step above him."

PHD has been taking up 40% of Brown's time, presumably because the rest of the business is "going great guns", led by the "talented" Steve Williams and Jonathan Allan (chief executive and managing director of OMD UK respectively), Robert Ffitch (managing diretor of Manning Gottlieb OMD) and Peter Thomson (managing director of M2M).

At group level, Brown has big plans for OPera and wants to increase its profile in comparison to WPP's GroupM. She has put a new strategy in place and beefed up the resource, bringing in Adam Pace as head of digital trading - the first step in "leveraging the scale of the group" to deliver best buying performance.

"Companies that haven't got their [group] trading in place are in trouble," says Brown. "Publicis will be at a big competitive disadvantage if they go into the autumn trading season without getting their ducks in a line. The groups that have got their acts together are OPera and GroupM."

Brown was attracted to Omnicom because it has a "more creative and forward-thinking approach" than WPP. "[Omnicom] is not about big acquisitions; it likes to grow organically," she says. "The company is big on people and talent development."

Brown describes herself as "very much a people person", whose career is linked to influential individuals in her previous agency, media owner and client roles.

"I moved from DMB to BBH because of Richard Eyre, from BBH to IPC because of Sly Bailey, and from IPC to OMG because of Colin [Gottlieb, OMG's EMEA chief executive]," she says. "People are very important to me."

Many feel Brown was a new broom installed by Gottlieb to fashion the group into a shape more to his liking and, approaching one year in the post, Brown is looking forward to her appraisal with him next month.

One thing is for sure: there's a new sheriff in town, and she has used the determination, drive and enthusiasm inherited from her footballer father, Eddie Stuart, who played for Wolves in the 1950s under England captain Billy Wright, to make her mark.

It seems the ghosts of P, H and D are well and truly being exorcised from the agency's Telephone Exchange headquarters. It will be interesting to see what happens when Brown turns her full attention to the other parts of the Omnicom group in the UK.

CV
2007 Chief executive, Omnicom Media Group UK
1997 Various positions at IPC Media, including group marketing director, managing director, tx, and board director
1990 Various positions, including group director, BBH/Motive
1987 Media planner/buyer, D'Arcy Masius Benton and Bowles (DMB&B)

Family Married to Kevin Brown, head of engagement planning, BBH. Two children: Polly, seven, and Joey, four
Car Lexus Hybrid 400
Mobile phone Nokia 6300
Desert island media The Guardian, Grazia and Brothers and Sisters

Brown on...
Agency transparency: We have contracts with each of our clients and we adhere to our contracts. We're subject to Sarbanes-Oxley, because we're an American company.
Colin Gottlieb: Colin Gottlieb is brilliant to work for: no-nonsense, incredibly straight, fair, bright, and a smart businessman. Clients really engage with him.
Omnicom Media Group: The job was a new role and I could see the opportunity. PHD had fully rolled into the network, and we wanted to leverage our scale in the market for the benefit of our clients.
Digital: I'm doing a big piece of work on how we're structured digitally, particularly in the area of search, looking at all options. The way WPP has set up its search operation is one way we could go. We should finalise this in the next few weeks.
PHD today: All our big clients - The Guardian, Sainsbury's, ING Direct -  are really happy, and our client retention is fantastic. We're on the lists for all the big pitches, and we're attracting really good people. What's not to like?