Padraig Moran, one of the leading figures in the Irish advertising industry over the last 30 years is set to retire from the Publicis-affiliated group of agencies that he built up in the intervening period. He will be replaced by Arthur Byrne, the commercial and financial director of Aegis Media in Ireland for the last 17 years. Moran will officially step down in July 2014 while Arthur Byrne will join in April of the same year.
The low-profile Moran has presided over the growth of a substantial marketing communications business that embraces media, creative, digital, DM and PR making it the largest in the industry. At a time when many Irish agencies were selling out to multinationals, Moran managed to keep majority ownership of the business in local hands. To this day Publicis only owns a minority stake in each of the different agencies.
Over the past few years, however, he has been unwinding his various shareholdings in the different agencies he helped set up. Together with Alan Cox, who heads up Core Media, he has overseen the rapid growth of Core Media’s footprint in recent years. Core Media’s group of agencies now include Starcom, MediaVest, Clear Blue Water, Radical, Mediaworks, AskChil.ie and Publicis Engage. Moran was also instrumental in the growth of QMP which later became Publicis Dublin and Publicis D as well as PR agency Pembroke Communications. The combined turnover of all the different agencies Moran presided over is in excess of €180m.
An accountant by profession, the normally media-shy Moran gave his first full interview to IMJ back in July 2011. In the course of the interview he reflected on how the advertising industry had changed since he first joined it in July 1978. The full interview can be accessed in IMJ’s Digital Archive HERE
