Ogilvy's Mark Blair promoted to global role

It is understood that Blair will be joining the agency's global new business group and global brand management (GBM) team as chief strategy officer.

An Ogilvy veteran, Blair moved to Asia in 1996 as the agency’s first regional planning director.

He was promoted to president of Ogilvy & Mather Japan in 2001 and in 2006 was made president of the global brand community for the Asia Pacific region.  At the end of 2008, Blair was appointed to a joint Ogilvy-WPP role.

Most recently, Blair has been based in the US where he led the transition of the Kimberly-Clark account from JWT to Ogilvy. It is understood that he will continue to lead this account globally in his new role.

Blair’s new position marks the fifth senior Ogilvy executive from Asia to take up a global role. In 2008, it was announced that Ogilvy & Mather Asia-Pacific chief executive Miles Young would replace Shelly Lazarus as global CEO of Ogilvy Group the following January. Later that year, Asia-Pacific regional creative chief Tham Khai Meng was appointed as the agency’s worldwide creative director.

In 2009, Ogilvy PR’s regional CEO for Asia Pacific Christopher Graves was also moved to the US to head the network’s global operations, while earlier this year Paul Heath was promoted to the role of worldwide director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising in addition to his role as CEO for Ogilvy Asia-Pacific.