Aegis’s Verklin Moves On, Possibly to ‘Project Canoe’

Flamboyant David Verklin, CEO of Aegis, has decided to call it quits after a decade with the agency. He will step down at the end of the year, and his protege and hand-picked successor Sarah Fay will replace him.

Verklin will be available to Aegis on a consulting basis for a few months; he and plans to take some time off before he moves on to his next venture, which will likely be in media but likely will not be on the agency side, reports MediaPost.

Nine months ago, Verklin named Fay CEO of Carat US. Fay created Carat Fusion, and has gotten good reviews for managing the integration of the digital and traditional media ops. She is also credited with boosting moral at Carat and improving its street creds.

Verklin’s departure has nothing to do with perceptions that Aegis and Carat are stagnating in terms of growth, he says, pointing out that, “We grew by 25 percent last year, and we’ve been growing at an annual compound rate of 21 percent over the past decade. To lay my departure on Wal-Mart, or Warner Bros. or anything else is just not accurate. That’s baseball, you win some accounts, you lose some accounts.”

Executives familiar with the situation say Verklin is expected to lead Project Canoe, a consortium of cable operators that is attempting to create a set of universal metrics for video on demand, according to AdAge. Verklin has said he is considering a range of options and has not accepted a position yet.