Geoff McGrath, who recently stepped down as managing director of Target McConnells, is leaving the creative side of the business to become managing director at Core Media’s Starcom. McGrath has considerable experience working alongside Starcom on the An Post account, where his client contact is group sales and marketing director Liam Sheehan.
Craig Farrell will head up Core’s ZenithOptimedia.
McGrath started out in adland at Arks where he worked on Guinness. He joined Bank of Ireland in 1997 and helped developed the bank’s ‘Ask not what your county can do for you’ GAA sponsorship. Three years later, he joined McConnells, working on direct campaigns and adding Eircom and AIB. In 2003, he joined Target Marketing, run by Gary Brown.
The agency dominated the An Post direct marketing awards for clients like Diageo and was named agency of the year five years on the trot. In 2005, Brown sold the business to DDFH&B and WPP. Two years later, they set up a digital business called RMG. In 2011, McGrath became Target McConnells’ MD. Brown later took over from Pat Donnelly as chairman.
As well as heading up Starcom, McGrath is Core’s “director of transformative change”.
Abi Moran, pictured above with McGrath, has been promoted to MD at Target McConnells.
