What Lord Chadlington would say about it we can only guess. Staff
at Weber Shandwick marked 100 days since the merger with BSMG last week
with a Battersea Park booze-up quite different in tone from the
Shandwick man's chauffeur-driven and buttoned-up style.
One sign of the relaxed manner of the new top dogs saw skittish
presentations by each of nine divisional MDs as a prelude to the star
attraction: double-act joint CEOs David Brain and Colin Byrne.
A video of the pair in James Bond-style fancy dress cycling across
London was shown to the 450 staff present, before the pair arrived in
the flesh to gee up the troops for 2002. And not a Bentley in sight.
But in acknowledging the debt owed to his lordly predecessor, Byrne
couldn't resist the comment: 'And Chadlington wouldn't have had to hire
the white tux from Moss Bros - that's for sure.'
