Cheil Promotes UK-based Chalk and Hathaway

Cheil has promoted UK based Chris Chalk and Simon Hathaway to its global board as part of its ongoing and ambitious growth strategy.

Chalk steps up from his role as president, chief strategy officer Europe to global chief strategy officer. In his new role Chalk will lead a diverse global team of strategists aiming to help clients build agility into their brands and communications. He will be responsible for strengthening the network’s planning capabilities by developing the tools and processes needed to help inspire Ideas That Move.

Hathaway is promoted from his role as president, shopper marketing and retail operations to become global head of RX. The promotion follows Cheil’s global restructuring of its retail offer, which see its retail, shopper and digital@retail capabilities brought together into a single capability designed to deliver agility to clients in all moments of transaction with their customers. The newly formed capability will focus on building Cheil’s global retail business with 900 people across all territories.

Chalk and Hathaway will report in to Michael Kim, global COO at Cheil in Seoul. Both will continue to be based at Cheil’s UK office.

Kim said: “We’ve invested a significant amount of time and effort into creating a future facing offering for clients across all disciplines. The creation of our RX capability is testament to that approach and is an integral part of our ongoing growth strategy. Simon has played a key role in advancing our retail offering thus far, and I couldn’t think of a better person to lead the RX division forward. And there is no doubt that Chris’s thought leadership and contribution has transformed the relationships with our key clients. With this new leadership, we will create ideas that move searching, shopping and sharing behaviour and ultimately deliver agile futures for our clients.”

Hathaway adds: “Cheil has been pioneering new thinking to broaden the retail experience over the past couple of years and our global vantage point has underlined the need for a more concrete partnership between retail and digital.  Increasingly, we’re seeing retail and user experience design converging, both externally as well as within our own teams. RX has been created to deliver the future-facing solutions this convergence is going to demand, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in as part of my new remit.”

Chalk added: “Cheil has a unique set of capabilities which have evolved out of its enduring relationship with Samsung. As a culture it’s inherently innovative, forward thinking and collaborative. And as a business it has gained real momentum in the UK, across Europe and the globe. My new role as Global Chief Strategy Officer gives me access to all this amazing talent, and my challenge will be to make the most of it for our clients and for the network.”

Cheil UK has trebled in size to well over 250 staff since January 2012, picking up a number of awards at Cannes Lions, Caples Awards, Kinsale Shark Awards and Campaign Big Awards, as well as new business wins including Coca-Cola.