Dumeu strategy for FutureBrand

FutureBrand has poached Landor Associates’ number two – EMEA and Asia chairman Jean-Louis Dumeu – to fill its top job of chairman and chief executive.

The Frenchman took up his new role last week, filling a post that stood vacant at FutureBrand for almost 12 months, since predecessor John Elkins’ departure in April last year (DW 17 April 2003).

Dumeu, who worked at Landor for 15 years, spent only a month in his new role as chairman. He was previously based in Paris, but will now be headquartered in New York to head up FutureBrand’s global operation.

According to a Landor Associates spokeswoman, the consultancy is unlikely to replace Dumeu in the short term.

‘The position was only created three months ago and there are no immediate plans to replace [Dumeu],’ she says.

Charlie Wrench, who was promoted to Dumeu’s old job of president Europe and Middle East in November, will now report directly to Landor chairman and chief executive Craig Branigan.

FutureBrand acting chief executive Richard O’Leary has been appointed to president and chief operating officer.

O’Leary says Dumeu will have a strategic, global remit, while his own role will be ‘more operational, with a focus on specific clients’. Dumeu has been tasked with ‘delivering growth’, he adds.

‘[Dumeu] has been brought in to focus on clients and deliver growth through [cementing] existing relationships and winning new business,’ says O’Leary.

Dumeu’s appointment fills a leadership vacuum at the consultancy, following Elkins’ move to Visa and, at a UK level, Charles Trevail’s exit in July (DW 3 July 2003).

O’Leary says it is ‘too early’ to comment on Dumeu’s plans for a replacement for Trevail and says other organisational changes are not in the pipeline.