Drawing a line under a difficult year without a permanent leader, Patrick Ståhle now has his feet under the desk as the CEO of Aegis Media Asia-Pacific.
Big on cuddly phrases like "mutual respect" and "open collaboration", Ståhle exudes the cool-headed, liberal air one might expect of a Swede. His management style, he says, is "more coach than boss", and the endless hours spent jetting around the region give him time for quiet contemplation.
And yet Ståhle is not shy of making tough decisions. Last month he closed Carat International, Carat's year-old multinational client silo, and the division's long-time MD, Anna Azilli, was shown the door (Media, 6 October).
Carat International made no sense, Ståhle explains. Regional clients (adidas and Philips are key relationships) were being run out of Hong Kong or Singapore at a time when advertisers were looking to up sticks to Shanghai and elsewhere.
Instead, he has upgraded Carat's local operations and assembled a special team with one thing in mind: winning new business. The carefully-picked quartet will report directly to him. As the four members are in three different countries, the set-up is not ideal. But Ståhle was determined to pick his best people to win pitches.
Rob Kabus, Carat's Singapore-based head of planning, will run the unit. Lyn Rogers, his best account manager, and Barney Loehnis, head of Aegis's digital division Isobar, will come in from Hong Kong. And PV Narayanamoorthy, Carat's research guru, will jet in from India — "the library of the world," according to Ståhle.
Carat's new business record isn't bad (JetStar across Asia, ABN Amro in India and P&G in the Philippines). In fact, the agency can claim to have won more individual accounts than any other agency this year. The problem is that wins have mainly been small-fry project work. Meanwhile, fledgling sibling Vizeum is yet to really make its mark. Ståhle is quick to point out that Aegis has only been in the region since 1997, at a time when agency media departments were still welded to their advertising parents. Convincing clients to divide their contracts, he says, has taken time.
Even so, he has ambitious targets. "I want this company to have doubled in size by 2009," he says, both organically and by acquisition. "We have gone from nothing to 1,600 people in 13 markets and continue to grow at 40 per cent a year."
But size isn't everything to Ståhle. "I want us to be seen as the number one communications planning agency in Asia," he enthuses, a task which involves rolling out a global company strategy developed in 2003 that has taken hold in Europe and the Americas, where Aegis is stronger.
"In Europe, we control 25 per cent of the market. Here, we are a challenger brand," he points out. Carat is well under half the size of MindShare, the largest media agency in Asia-Pacific, and over half a billion dollars in billings behind the Publicis Groupe media agencies in second and third.
But Aegis isn't just about Carat, Ståhle says. Four years ago, 80 per cent of Aegis's business in Europe came from Carat. Now that figure is closer to 60 per cent. "I have that same vision for Asia," he says, naming Posterscope, Isobar, Vizeum and various PR and events companies as important parts of his game plan.
So is he up to the task? If variety counts for anything, then he is most certainly the man for the job. Ten years piloting helicopters for the Swedish Navy was followed by a stint as a marketing consultant. After that, he ran a creative agency (BBDO), launched a suite of French TV channels (Canal Plus) and ran a dotcom when e-learning was all the rage.
As for his loyalty, Ståhle rejoined Aegis after a two-year spell away and, as a member of the global executive board, knows the company as well as anyone.
"I've been a client, so I know what the others can be like," he says, refusing to name names.
He adds: "You'll find fewer arseholes at Aegis," stumbling upon a company mantra that is probably better than the current version: 'Champions of communication as a force for business transformation'. At number six in the market, Ståhle and Aegis have plenty of catching up to do in Asia. It is probably as tricky a task as landing a helicopter. Which, he insists, he only crashed once.
