- Andrew McMains

NEW YORK Gotham CEO Peter McGuinness has expanded his management team with the addition of director of planning John Heath and Lyle Tick, who has taken the new position of group managing director and managing partner at the Interpublic Group shop.

Tick, 33, spent the past four years at independent mcgarrybowen here, where he had been a group managing director, overseeing accounts such as Reebok, Brahma beer and Verizon. Before mcgarrybowen, he was an account director at Havas' Euro RSCG in New York, working on Intel and Polaroid.

Heath, 37, was previously a group planning director at IPG's McCann Erickson in New York, where he spent the past 11 years. His client experience includes MasterCard, Nikon and Acuvue, a Johnson & Johnson brand.

Heath and Tick "share my ambitions for the agency and intense focus on driving our clients' businesses and our own," said McGuinness. "One of my key goals at Gotham is to build on its strengths and significantly expand its offering and evolve its model."

Heath will lead and develop the New York shop's planning function and Tick will manage the Bausch & Lomb and yellowbook.com accounts. In addition, Tick will contribute to new business development efforts and seek to deepen the shop's integrated communications offerings.

Since January, Gotham has added U.S. creative duties on yellowbook.com and North American creative duties on Sony Ericsson. In addition, its U.S. assignments on Bausch & Lomb and Remington have become global.

The agency's sole losses this year -- Abbott Laboratories brands Ensure and Glucerna -- stemmed from the client shifting its marketing focus from consumers to doctors, according to an agency rep.

Gotham's biggest client is Maybelline, a division of L'Oreal.