Witherell nets Communisis top job

Former Fuel, Merkle, and Chemistry data chief Lee Witherell has been appointed managing director of Communisis Data Intelligence (CDI), succeeding Jon Cano-Lopez who quit to join The REaD Group in May last year.
Witherell, who has already taken up the job, joined from Fuel, the Engine-owned data agency originally set up by Partners Andrews Aldridge.
In his new role he works closely with Communisis’ new agency group, Psona, created late last year through the merger of the group’s acquisitions. Businesses in the new group include DM agencies Geronimo and The Communications Agency, as well as digital firm Public Creative, film production agency Jacaranda and social media shop Yomego.
Having started his career in 1993 at CMT as a senior analyst, Witherell had spells at Equifax, Claritas, and Tri-Direct before joining Chemistry in 2006.
Witherell then co-founded Wise Owl Marketing, a company which ran for four years, before switching to US agency Merkle, where he headed up CRM insight.
In 2013, Witherell became one of Charles Ping’s wing-men – as analytics and operations director at Fuel. The former Guardian and Communisis man had taken over as chief executive at the agency in September 2012.
Witherell said: ‘I’m delighted to to be working with both our major Communisis accounts as well as the recently formed Psona agency group.
“It’s great to be able to combine CDI’s heritage in data with a wide range of agency capabilities including creative, digital, social and experiential.
“Communisis is uniquely placed to leverage our experience in both marketing and transactional communications to customers to deliver significant added value to our clients. I’m looking forward to deploying this experience to drive greater returns from our clients’ CRM programmes.”

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