GroupM’s chief trading officer, Danny Bass, has reportedly been offered the top job when incumbent John Steedman steps down in June. Steedman announced his resignation via a statement to media on the 22nd of April.
The Australian is this morning reporting that Bass has been informally offered Steedman’s role; however, it is understood that Google is also courting Bass to take the helm of a new project to help it better monetise YouTube.
B&T contacted Bass for comment.
Bass now famously infuriated TV bosses when he was quoted in an article in the AFR two weeks ago saying advertisers deserved better rates due to falling audience figures. He was slammed for the comments with chairman of the industry body Free TV, Harold Mitchell, calling the comments “very disturbing”, “ill informed” and “naive”.
The Australian reported comments by GroupM chief executive of Asia Pacific, Mark Patterson, that Bass and GroupM’s former head of trading, James Parkinson, were both in the running for the CEO role. Parkinson is currently in Europe running GroupM’s Europe, Middle Eastern and Africa trading operations.
Mr Patterson was this morning quoted in The Australian’s Media section as saying: “We are currently talking to a number of candidates, as you’d expect, and conversations are at different stages.
“There is no set timeframe and with an appointment such as this it’s better to focus on the person than the timeframe around the individuals concerned.
“We have the scale and resources to manage any eventuality and scenario, I am confident. Steady (Steedman), as you know and would expect, is fully involved in the process as well as in the business as CEO in the coming months and then in [a non-executive] role.”
Danny Bass will be one of the keynote speakers at Daze Of Disruption in Sydney on the 18th and 19th of May 2015.
