Mr Walsh (pictured) has 34 years of experience in advertising and brand marketing and is currently a director of advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather South Africa and of Ogilvy & Mather Africa Inc and a non-executive of global brand identity and design company, The Brand Union.
Formerly a main board director of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide for 16 years, he was also, for 12 years, Chief Executive of their Europe, Middle East and African operations. He is also Vice President of Business Development for Velti Plc, the world’s largest mobile marketing company, helping them build their capability in the brand marketing and agency sector.
Mr Walsh, 60, has been chairman of the high profile UK Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organisation for 13 leading UK charities including The Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children, since 2004. He has been key in helping to raise over £100m and distributing over £400 million in aid for victims of the Asian tsunami, Pakistan earthquake, Darfur, Niger, Congo, Gaza and the Haiti earthquake.
Mike said: “I am delighted to be joining Archant; it is a progressive regional media company and I look forward to working with the strong management team at an exciting and challenging time. Having worked in media for some 38 years I look forward to learning about the company and contributing my experience to its development.”
Archant chairman, Richard Jewson, said: “To have someone of Mike’s calibre and experience, particularly in the advertising industry and in new media, joining the Board will add strength and depth to our team and I am sure will benefit the business in many different ways.”
In his advertising work, Mr Walsh has worked on products as diverse as Heinz baked beans to Cadbury’s chocolate and Baileys Irish Cream.
Mr Walsh is based in London and North Norfolk and is married with two grown-up children.
About Archant
Archant says: “Archant is the UK's largest independently-owned regional media business, active in the fields of regional newspaper and magazine publishing, contract printing and internet communications.
Its newspapers division, Archant Regional, produces four daily regional newspapers and around 60 weekly titles with a combined circulation of 2.25 million copies every week. It is a UK top six regional newspaper publisher. It also publishes many of the group’s 180 websites and a number of its magazines.
Archant also owns three magazine companies, which between them produce around 80 magazines. Archant Specialist is the consumer magazine publishing division. Archant Life produces a growing number of city and county lifestyle magazine titles and several French magazines. Archant Dialogue is the contract and customer publishing arm of the group.
Archant can trace its roots back over 160 years and, as a private company employs 1750 people right across England. Its head office is in Norwich and has an annual turnover of £175 million.”
