Euro RSCG Life names Metropoulos CEO

EURO RSCG LIFE Worldwide reshuffled its top management, with Jim Metropoulos, MD signing on as CEO of the Havas healthcare network from WPP's Sudler & Hennessey, where he was co-president.

Metropoulos will report to David Jones, global CEO of Euro RSCG Life Worldwide.

Metropoulos succeeds

Pantello will stay on full-time until the end of the year, managing the transition, and will then drop down to part-time, working as a strategic consultant and mentor to the new management team.

The network also named Doug Burcin and Ed Stapor, the heads of its two largest US units, coCEOs for North America, new posts reporting to Metropoulos. Burcin is president of Euro RSCG Life Metamax, which handles key Sanofi-Aventis accounts, and Stapor heads Euro RSCG Life Chelsea.

They join Michel Nakache, CEO for Euro RSCG Life Europe/Asia, who also reports to Metropoulos.

"It puts into place a nice management team for the future," said Pantello. "These are all guys in their 40s. It's a nice succession plan to continue driving this business forward."

Pantello, an LM&P cofounder who has been with the company for 26 years, has served as CEO of the group since 2002. He presided over a consolidation of the sprawling agency network and engineered its realignment under the "Power of One" model, featuring a single profit-and-loss statement and centralized, media-neutral offering. He is also chairman emeritus of the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame. -Matthew Arnold