Kantar Names COO and Chief HR Officer

Kantar has moved James Brooks into a newly created role, Chief Operations Officer, while Scott Carter has been promoted to the position of Chief HR Officer. Both join the Kantar Board.

Brooks joined Kantar in 2004 as Global Operations Director with Kantar Worldpanel, and has since been Operations Director for Kantar TNS and Chief Operations Officer of Kantar's Insights Division. Before joining Kantar, he spent a decade at IRI in a combination of commercial and operational roles.

Carter has been with Kantar since 2010 - initially as Global Head of Recruiting and then as Group HR Director for a portfolio of Kantar subsidiaries. He was promoted to the role of Chief HR Office for Kantar Media in 2015. Earlier, he worked for Price Waterhouse and a number of technology companies.

Commenting on the appointments, Kantar CEO Eric Salama said: 'In Scott and James we have two superb, passionate experts who deeply understand Kantar. They both put clients at the heart of their thinking and understand the importance of building strong teams around them and helping people flourish. I am particularly pleased that we have managed to fill critical roles with the best people by promoting from within'.

A fortnight ago, WPP CEO Mark Read laid out details of turnaround strategy which includes a formal process to review the possible sale of Kantar, home to agencies such as TNS, Millward Brown and Lightspeed. If a transaction is agreed, it is likely to be announced in the second quarter of 2019, and WPP says it has already received numerous unsolicited expressions of interest.

Web site: www.kantar.com .