Initiative Worldwide: Richard Beaven replaces Alec Gerster as CEO
Richard Beaven has been the new head of the media agency network Initiative Worldwide since March, succeeding Alec Gerster. He plans to realign the company while continuing to operate in the fields of media, marketing, and digital.
Some news takes longer: as we learned in May, Richard Beaven has been the new head of the Initiative Worldwide media agency network since March, taking over from Alec Gerster. This makes him head of the regional managers and the global leadership team, in which he will define strategies and developments for the future. According to the press release, Beaven has set out to realign Initiative as a company and to be active in the fields of media, marketing and digital at the same time. The agency has 2,500 employees worldwide and has offices in Carouge and Wallisellen in Switzerland.
Beaven joined Initiative in September 2006. Previously, he was deputy managing director at Mediavest USA. In this position, he was responsible for the Starcom Mediavest Group's Procter & Gamble account and the development of digital agency resources. Prior to Procter & Gamble, he was Senior Vice President of the Coca Cola account at Mediavest.
In 2002, Richard Beaven played an important role in the transformation of Leo Burnett Media into a separate company (Starcom) and the subsequent merger with the subsidiary Motive to form Starcom Motive. Beaven studied economics, advertising and marketing at Bristol Polytechnic in England.
