McMenemy Hill adds chairman and MD

Agency McMenemy Hill has announced a brace of top-level appointments as its co-founders look to return to more hands-on day-to-day roles in the business. The first move sees former McCann-Erickson chief executive Malcolm Summerfield join as chairman, backed by Christina Lunoe, who has been promoted to managing director from her previous role as sales and marketing director. Both are newly created positions and part of a move allowing founders Sean McMenemy and Chris Hill to have closer client-facing roles. “Sean and Chris recognised that in relinquishing these duties to people they recognise as having the expertise to carry them out extremely well, they could spend more time doing business and less time running it,” a spokesman said. Summerfield’s role will be to act as mentor to the founders and assist the agency in growing the business. “The attraction of McMenemy Hill for me is its focus on providing clients with much more than an event management resource,” Summerfield said. "Here, there is a high level of intellect and strategic discipline. In addition to pursuing organic growth, we will also be seeking acquisitions to strengthen and broaden the scope of our offer to our existing clients and other major organisations.” Lunoe’s promotion sees her take on the overall operational responsibility for the McMenemy Hill business just two years after joining the agency. In that time she is credited with overseeing turnover increase from £3.1m to £4.75m. “Soon after Christina joined us, it became clear that she had considerable management talents and there was real scope for her to use them here,” Hill said, while McMenemy added: “There are many activities we have handed over to Christina, in full confidence she will carry them out extremely well. Doing so has left Chris and me more time to spend on growing the business and servicing clients, which we really enjoy.” Lunoe concluded: “Moving to McMenemy Hill was a big decision. What convinced me most was the enthusiasm of Chris and Sean. I believe this company has huge potential and I am greatly looking forward to helping everyone here realise it.”