Digitas Outlines Global Expansion Plans, Names Unilever Exec to Enact Them

Alan Rutherford, current VP of global media at Unilever, will soon leave the European CPG giant to lead Digitas’s international expansion as CEO of Digitas Global.

Rutherford will work in London and report to Digitas Chairman and CEO David Kenny. He’s tasked with leading the Publicis-owned agency’s global growth plans, which include pan-European and pan-Asian client development. To do so, he’s been granted oversight of Digitas London and Prodigious Worldwide, Digitas’s new digital production unit.

Digitas has been busy this spring putting its overseas expansion plans into motion. In just the last month, it reopened its London presence, spun off its Modem Media agency unit and launched the Prodigious digital hub with Epsilon vet Corey Torrence at the helm. Torrence will report to Rutherford, as will Digitas London President Norm Johnston and Greg Green, SVP of the Digitas Media Operations & Technology group.

As it was spun off last month from the parent that acquired it three years ago, Modem Media was rechristened Publicis Modem with the intent that it be aligned with other Publicis units and, according to CEO Martin Reidy, “Be the digital juice aligned with… the agencies where we could come in and help transform an existing agency into more of a digital platform.”

Rutherford takes up with Digitas in September, marking a return to the agency world. He left Ogilvy and Mather Europe in 1998 to join Unilever. He started his career at Dorlands Advertising in 1984.