OMD Lands Chris Pyne for East Coast President and Chief Strategy Office Slots

NEW YORK, Jan. 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Omnicom Media Group agency OMD  today announced  that Chris Pyne has joined OMD US as President, OMD East, succeeding Kathleen Brookbanks, who is moving up to a national role as Chief Operating Officer for OMD US.  Concurrent with his president title, Pyne, who joins OMD following stints as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Product Officer at Group M's MediaCom, will also take on the role of Chief Strategy Office for OMD US.

In his dual role, Pyne will oversee day-to-day management of the OMD East client roster, aligning resources and talent to support media planning and buying for leading national and global brands such as Pepsi, FedEx, General Electric, Toys R Us and Coty; additionally, Pyne will provide strategic leadership across all OMD US account teams.

"Chris has a demonstrated ability to align an agency strategy with client business objectives, and a record of building and leading effective account teams," says OMD US CEO Monica Karo.  "As our industry continues its rapid migration toward business results as the preferred success metric, his experience gives us a singular advantage in the marketplace."

While at MediaCom, Pyne was responsible for all planning processes and product creation; identifying and developing growth areas and opportunities; and assuring consistent quality of work across all MediaCom account teams.  More simply stated, his remit encompassed the current and future performance across the entire Mediacom roster of clients including Dell, Subway, Audi, Volkswagen, Bayer, Revlon, Shell, Subway and Universal Music Group. A highlight of his MediaCom tenure was the creation and execution of a holistic planning process, Gold Standard Implementational Planning that leveraged media insights into the entire marcomms process, coordinating all agency partners to deliver the most effective media plans. 

Prior to joining MediaCom, Pyne held the title of SVP, Head of NY Planning at Optimedia US, overseeing all client planning teams in New York, and leading the agency's business development efforts nationwide. Pyne also played a key role in developing the company's OPEN planning process, a consumer-led approach to integrated communication planning and buying. Before joining Optimedia's New York operation in 2006, Chris was group planning director for P&G at ZenithOptimedia London.

Commenting on his new role, Pyne says, "As the media industry becomes even more focused around driving business results it is vitally important to work with people who genuinely care about the work they do for their clients.  Monica and her team work tirelessly for their clients, and their commitment to excellence, innovation and integrity shows in the results they deliver.  It's an honor to be joining this team."

Pyne's work on behalf of clients including P&G has received numerous industry honors, including the P&G Media Award, and awards from Campaign Magazine and Media Week in the U.K. He is an honors graduate of King's College London.

In his new role, Pyne will be headquartered in NY, reporting directly to Karo.

About OMD
OMD Worldwide (www.omd.com) is a leading global media communications agency, with more than 8,000 employees across 100 countries serving the world's high-profile brands.  OMD provides a range of services globally including communications strategy, media planning and buying, digital execution, content creation, entertainment marketing, sponsorship and brand analytics.  OMD Worldwide is a unit of Omnicom Media Group, the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC).

SOURCE OMD