- Noreen O'Leary

NEW YORK Neil Powell, the former chief creative officer of Margeottes Fertitta Powell, has been hired by London's Beattie McGuinness Bungay, which is in the process of opening a New York outpost, sources said.
 
Powell and Andrew McGuinness, BMB's CEO, did not return calls seeking comment.
 
Powell was most recently the head of We Are Gigantic, created out of the consolidation of MDC Partners' agencies Margeotes Fertitta Powell and Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners in 2007. Later that year, another New York agency, Gigantic, claimed trademark infringement and won. An MDC rep now says We Are Gigantic "has not existed for several years."
 
Powell, a graphic designer who has also worked in advertising, launched his own boutique in 2000 and sold it to MDC in 2005, with the Canadian company merging it into its Margeotes Fertitta & Partners unit that year. After MFP CEO George Fertitta left in 2006, the combined entity hemorrhaged business and most of its remaining operations were transferred into Kirshenbaum Bond.
 
Prior to setting up his own agency, Powell spent nine years at Fallon, serving as a managing partner as well as president and ecd of the agency's design unit, Duffy.
 
In December, Cheil Worldwide -- South Korea's largest ad agency -- bought a 49 percent stake in BMB, founded by three former TBWA London execs. A New York office is BMB's first expansion effort in the agency's push outside the U.K.

Samsung, through a corporate affiliate, owns 13 percent of Cheil, which is the electronics company's global agency of record. BMB counts Samsung among its clients, which also include Ikea, ING Direct, Carling, Selfridges and various Virgin business units.