Ogilvy UK planning head John Shaw and his US counterpart Colin Mitchell have been named as joint worldwide planning directors, the first global roles for the planning discipline within Ogilvy.

Based in London, John Shaw got his start in planning at JWT in the UK in the 80’s, and worked at various London agencies, as well as Mars and AC Nielsen, before moving to the US in 1996 to join Wieden + Kennedy.  In 2003, he joined Ogilvy in Hong Kong as Regional Planning Director for Asia/Pacific, before returning to London in 2006, where he is responsible for planning at Ogilvy Group UK and across Europe.

Colin Mitchell joined Ogilvy & Mather in 1999 as lead planner on IBM.  He started his career as a trainee planner at BMP in London.  Colin has worked on many of the agency’s classic case histories, including BP and Cisco.  In 2004, he became chief strategic officer for North America.  He is based in New York.

O&M Worldwide chief executive Miles Young commented on the appointments: “I am a true believer when it comes to planning. It is centre-front of the major brand transformations we work on, but up to now it has not had global leadership in Ogilvy.  Colin and John will provide that – they are the perfect duo, dynamic and dashing thinkers.  Their task is to create industry leading capabilities around the world for us and our clients.”

Together, Shaw and Mitchell will chair the Ogilvy & Mather Global Planning Council.  Part of their agenda will be to elevate “effectiveness” to a more central role around the world.  To realise this objective, Tim Broadbent, currently responsible for planning across Asia, has also been appointed to a newly created role, that of global effectiveness director.

“Tim is probably the industry’s leading expert on the subject of effectiveness, and is the only person to have won two Grand Prix in addition to an IPA Gold Effectiveness Award,” added Young.