Media guru Irwin Gottleb has a new position, the result of a reorganization by WPP’s global media management company GroupM.

Gottlieb will move from global CEO to chairman. The company announcement says, "Under the new structure, Gotlieb will focus on the overall strategic direction of GroupM and ensure that the company deploys data and technology to drive change for the benefit of GroupM clients and stakeholders."

Reporting directly to Gottlieb, in the newly created position of President of GroupM, is Dominic Proctor, the longtime CEO of Mindshare Worldwide, the announcement said.

The statement continued, "Proctor will oversee management of GroupM’s agencies worldwide, which in addition to Mindshare include Maxus, MEC, and MediaCom. GroupM’s regional heads, as well as the CEOs of the company’s four major media agencies, will report to him."

Replacing Proctor as CEO of Mindshare Worldwide will be Nick Emery, who has been Mindshare’s chief strategy officer, based in London.

Irwin Gotlieb:

Here’s the full announcement about the changes, released today, Jan. 26, 2012:

GROUPM STRENGTHENS GLOBAL MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE

Mindshare’s Dominic Proctor Named President of GroupM

NEW YORK—GroupM today announced that Dominic Proctor, the longtime CEO of Mindshare Worldwide, has been named President of GroupM, a new position.

The announcement was made by GroupM Global CEO Irwin Gotlieb, who said the move is designed to strengthen the company’s senior management team in order to successfully meet today’s marketplace challenges and opportunities.

In his new role, Proctor will continue to report to Gotlieb, who officially becomes GroupM Chairman as part of the reorganization. Proctor will be succeeded as Mindshare Worldwide CEO by Nick Emery, currently the London-based Chief Strategy Officer for Mindshare.

“These changes represent a logical and important progression for us, and we’re confident that our clients and staff will prosper as a consequence,” Gotlieb said in making the announcement. “Our rate of growth and the complexity of our business require that we constantly evolve. Media investment management sits at the crossroads of media, data and technology and we must be positioned to capture the significant opportunities that are on the horizon.”

Under the new structure, Gotlieb will focus on the overall strategic direction of GroupM and ensure that the company deploys data and technology to drive change for the benefit of GroupM clients and stakeholders. Proctor will oversee management of GroupM’s agencies worldwide, which in addition to Mindshare include Maxus, MEC, and MediaCom. GroupM’s regional heads, as well as the CEOs of the company’s four major media agencies, will report to him.

“I’m especially pleased that Dominic, who has been so instrumental in the long-term success of Mindshare, has agreed to move into this new and important role in GroupM and concentrate on the global management of our company,” Gotlieb said.

Proctor has deep experience in managing media agencies. He launched Mindshare Worldwide in September 1997 as WPP’s first media investment management agency and led the company over the ensuing years to its current position as one of the leading media shops in the world. He started his career in 1979 and worked in various advertising agencies before joining JWT in London, where he became Media Director in 1989, Managing Director in 1991, and Chief Executive in December 1992. He held this position for five years, during which time he also had a seat on the board of JWT Worldwide.

“GroupM has become a large and complicated company requiring more hands on the wheel than in previous years,” Proctor said. “We have many more moving parts and we need more operational management to maximize the opportunities across our agencies. I’m delighted to step into this role, and equally pleased that Nick has accepted the CEO role at Mindshare. He has been a great partner since the start, and Mindshare will go from strength to strength under his leadership.”

Emery, a Mindshare veteran who joined the company when it was founded in 1997 and has worked closely with Proctor ever since, said: “Mindshare is a great global network with fantastic, market leading talent and clients. I’m honored and privileged to be able to take over from Dominic.”

Photos of Irwin Gotlieb, Dominic Proctor and Nick Emery are available on request.

ABOUT GROUPM

GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation. It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare. Our primary purpose is to maximize the performance of WPP’s media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our stakeholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance-enhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation, and new communication services, to bring competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.