Liam McDonnell, one of the leading figures in the Irish advertising industry over the last 30 years is to retire as CEO of dentsu Ireland.
A former president of IAPI, McDonnell has played a seminal role in the development and expansion of the media agency landscape over the last 20 years.
McDonnell’s successor is Keith Lacy, currently managing director of dentsu Ireland. He joined iProspect Ireland in 2017 having worked for both client and agency side for over 20 years including stints at lastminute.com, In the Company of Huskies (now Forsman & Bodenfors Dublin) and Simply Zesty.
For his part, McDonnell started his career as a runner with The Media Bureau which was then run by the late Michael Bowles before moving on to work with Des O’Meara & Partners. He later held board positions with Irish International and Saatchi & Saatchi Dublin before teaming up with Pat Donnelly at All Ireland Media.
In 2001, All Ireland Media, the largest independent media agency at the time, was acquired by Aegis Network and renamed Carat. After Donnelly’s departure, McConnell was appointed as chief operations officer of Aegis Media Ireland in 2005. A period of expansion for the group ensued with the setting up of media agency Vizeum and the acquisitions of Lucidity and Brindley Advertising. Aegis itself was acquired by the Japanese advertising giant dentsu in 2013.
Dentsu’s Irish operations now include leading agency brands like Carat, iProspect, Dentsu Consult, The Story Lab, Isobar and Posterscope.
