Marketing Week

29 March 2007

Barclays loses head of direct marketing to agency Rapier

Barclays direct marketing chief Matthew Harris is leaving the bank to join Rapier to head the agency's data planning team.

Harris, head of direct response and customer relationship management (CRM), replaces Kath Ginn, who is joining Virgin Media as head of customer insight. Ginn has been on long-term secondment at the cable operator covering the role. She joined the agency in 2001 as principle consultant from customer relationship management consultancy Sophron.

Harris is responsible for all customer segmentation, data planning, evaluation and CRM at the Barclays retail business and across all channels including branches, direct mail and digital. Previously, he worked at mobile operator Orange as head of CRM strategy and for KPMG Consulting.

Rapier has recently been appointed to the £15m PruHealth integrated account and beat Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R to take the lead role in the launch of Virgin Media, which rebranded last month from the ntl and Telewest cable brands.

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