By Scott Wright
PUBLIC relations firm BIG Partnership has unveiled Allan Barr as its new chief executive.
Mr Barr, a member of the management buyout team which acquired the agency from founders Alex Barr and Neil Gibson in 2016, replaces Steve McLaughlin, who stepped down in November.
The promotion was announced as the agency said it had appointed associate directors Gayle Grant and Euan Blair to its full board. Account director Charlene Sweeney has been promoted to associate director.
Mr Barr, who joined the agency in 2007 and is the brother of Alex Barr, had been director of digital, design and marketing. He previously worked in senior communication roles with accountancy giants KPMG and PwC, and is credited with driving the firm’s diversification into digital, marketing and design services. He has been on the since 2010.
BIG chairman Malcolm McPherson said: “In Allan, we’ve got a chief executive who cares passionately about BIG, our clients and our team. He is the right person to lead us on the next stage of our evolution to become one of the UK’s leading integrated marketing and communications agencies.”
Allan Barr said: “I’ve now spent more than half of my career at BIG and am hugely excited to take on the role of CEO.
“Clearly it is a challenging time, but marketing and communications services have never been more important for organisations. “
Neil Gibson and Alex Barr have remained at BIG since the buyout while gradually reducing their involvement. Mr McLaughlin had been its first chief executive and left the post six months after joining in May last year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here