Former Fitch global planning director Pearse McCabe joins Rufus Leonard to head strategy

Rufus Leonard has appointed former Fitch global planning director Pearse McCabe to lead its integrated strategic brand team.

McCabe (pictured), who is joining the consultancy as strategy director, is one of a raft of appointments being made across Rufus Leonard. The consultancy has also promoted Iain Millar to head of innovation – a new position – and brought in Libby Penn from Adstream as business development manager.

Consultancy chief executive Neil Svensen says he has been looking for a new head of strategy since Andrew Pinkess left for LBI six months ago.

’As the market continues to consolidate, there is an expectation to understand deeper and darker business issues,’ says Svensen, who says looking at strategy is an ’intrinsic part of what we do’.

McCabe says, ’Careful understanding of how consumers process messages and experiences in different contexts means that we have to think about how different touchpoints complement one another – we need different ways of telling brand stories, depending on context.’ The digital side of the business will play a key role in linking the touchpoints, according to McCabe, who will be working with Millar.

Millar, who has been at Rufus Leonard for 12 years, will look to harness new technologies and digital innovations, which can be brought to bear for clients.

Svensen says that the consultancy is ’recognising the critical role that innovation has to play in our future by investing in it now’. He also says that it is ’running a small research and development programme, and is looking to work more closely with innovators’.

Business development manager Penn replaces Julie Randall, who has left after four years to join Waitrose, where she takes a social networking marketing role.

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