Ipsos bosses keep regional jobs in Synovate merger

Lifeng Liu stays in charge of Asia Pacific, Shane Farrell remains in charge of EMEA and Jim Smith continues to lead the Americas.

Liu will continue to be supported by Grant Bertoli in south-east Asia and David Richardson in north-east Asia.

The decision to hand the top Asia Pacific jobs to Ipsos executives comes despite the fact that Synovate had the larger business in the region. Its Asia Pacific revenue for 2010 was £158m compared to a total of £135m (€157m) for Ipsos’s operations in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Ipsos had already announced that the role of CEO for China has gone to Alick Zhou at the expense of Synovate’s Eliza Wong, who is staying on as a consultant until April 2012.

In the Americas, Jim Smith will be supported by Gonzalo Santamarina in the southern cone of South America and Alain Rozenfeld in the Caribbean and Central America.

Shane Farrell will be supported in EMEA by Dean Luker, who will manage western Europe and Edouard Monin who will manage the Middle East and North Africa. The manager for central and eastern Europe is yet to be named.

Roger Steadman, chairman of the Steadman Group, which Synovate bought in 2008, will serve alongside Ipsos’s David Somers as joint manager for Sub-Saharan Africa – the only regional role to go to a Synovate executive.

Robert Philpott, who had served as Synovate’s global CEO for two years, has also left the company.

In Synovate’s regional structure, Peter Huijboom was CEO for Europe and Latin America and Scott Miller was in charge of North America. Ipsos has said that those whose roles no longer exist will be offered other jobs in the company. Michael Spedding, who left his role as Synovate’s CEO for the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific earlier this year to join P\S\L Group, has now rejoined the combined company to lead its global pharma research business.

Ben Page remains as CEO of Ipsos Mori in the UK, while Synovate’s UK CEO Jill Telford has been offered roles in Europe and the US.

The combined company brings together 16,000 people in 84 countries. CEO Didier Truchot told Research that the total headcount of client-facing staff from Ipsos and Synovate will not fall from this year to next, and that the company plans reductions of no more than about 5% in support functions.