Former Saatchi Executive Becomes Agency Chairman

Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, the agency thrown into turmoil by the stormy departure of co-founder Maurice Saatchi, on Monday named a former executive as its new chairman.

Jennifer Laing, who spent 17 years at Saatchi & Saatchi before building up her own ad agency, Laing Henry, will take over the post left vacant when David Kershaw joined an exodus from Saatchi & Saatchi in January.

Laing Henry is set to be sold for $1.9 million in stock to Saatchi & Saatchi’s parent company, which expects this week to change its name to Cordiant from Saatchi & Saatchi Co. Laing’s salary will be $280,000 a year.

Assuming all of Laing Henry’s clients move over to Saatchi & Saatchi, the company says it will have gained enough new billings to roughly double the $41.6 million in business it lost after Maurice Saatchi left and said he would form his own new agency.

Key clients who quit the old Saatchi agency to join up with the new Saatchi agency include the tobacco maker Gallaher and the publishing company Mirror Group.

Saatchi & Saatchi says it has come up with $22.4 million in new billings and it hopes to get $64 million in additional billings from Laing Henry. Billings are what clients spend on advertising through their agencies.