Stead drives CCG design growth

PSD Associates managing director Paul Stead has been elevated to parent company CCG’s executive committee, to launch a central brand and design management division.

Stead becomes chief executive of CCG’s branding and design division, reporting to the division’s chairman Peter Schöning, who is on the CCG board. Schöning is chairman and chief executive of CCG-owned, German advertising agency Scholz & Friends.

The division is being created to oversee the management of CCG existing design and branding businesses and potential acquisitions. CCG incorporates Bamber Forsyth and US-based Lighthouse Global Network, which includes Fitch, Ideascope, Primo Angeli, The Leonhardt Group and C&FD.

According to CCG deputy finance director Andy Boland, continental Europe is an important growth market for the company, which already boasts a strong presence in design sectors throughout the UK, US and Asia, he claims.

“[Stead] will essentially be running the show,” adds Boland. “We hope the division will expand our international design group base.”

“We hope to develop CCG’s design and branding division into a major world player,” Stead says. He says the strategy for the group has yet to be finalised.

Schöning says he will be recruiting both marketing and finance directors, among others, and hopes to have a team of about ten in place soon. “We don’t want to stamp out the individuality and heritage of the design groups within CCG, but combine their forces,” he says.

Stead is replaced at PSD by former marketing and strategy director Mark Southwood, who has been working at the consultancy for 18 months. Stead, who founded the consultancy in 1988, will retain an interest in PSD in his role as chairman.