NEW YORK: Shandwick parent company the Interpublic Group has
appointed its own investor relations chief for the first time in a bid
to improve its ties with Wall Street.
IPG, which owns Golin/Harris Ludgate as well as the merged Weber
Shandwick Worldwide, has poached PepsiCo's vice-president of IR Susan
Watson, to fill its new senior vice-president of IR post.
Chief finance officer Sean Orr and senior vice-president finance Thomas
Volpe, have until now been main points of contact for both analysts and
institutional investors. IPG has been relatively slow to hire its own IR
chief.
The move comes amid a flurry of activity at IPG. Last year it turned its
three advertising networks into two by merging Lowe and Partners with
Ammirati Puris Lintas. The Weber Shandwick merger was compounded by
sister agency Golin/Harris acquiring the MWW group.
Watson, who worked with Orr at PepsiCo, started her career at Morgan
Stanley. She worked in IR divisions of publishing group Gannett and
Nielsen Media Research before joining PepsiCo.
