- Andrew McMains

Berlin Cameron United, seeking to add multinational clients that can be shared among the agency's eight hubs, has hired Tim Nicholls in the new position of president of global brands.

Nicholls, a former global account leader at Grey and TBWA, will be based in New York and report to Berlin CEO Ewen Cameron. His focus will be new business development, with the goal of making United function more like a true global network.

Currently, United's hubs have different names and, largely, their own clients. The operation in Madrid, for example, is called Sra. Rushmore, while the Paris office is Les Ouvriers du Paradis. The other offices are in Seattle; Oslo, Norway; Buenos Aires; Antwerp, Belgium; and Milan, Italy.

In making the hire, Cameron cited Nicholls wealth of agency experience as well as his success as an entrepreneur.

His last agency job was as a global managing director on the Diageo account at WPP Group's Grey in New York, where he worked from 2004 until 2006. After that, he operated as a consultant with a focus on branded entertainment and mobile marketing.

Then, in 2007, Nicholls co-founded a company that made herb-infused vodka: the Garden Variety Vodka Co. in New York. More recently, he consulted for New York private equity firm Beachtree Capital.

"I wanted to take all this new found wisdom and perspective and use it back in the world I came from," said Nicholls, 51. "So, I come back refreshed and honestly, all the stuff that had previously worn me down became irrelevant because I realized . . . that I Iove the business, brands, ideas and the media world and this business is who I am and what I do."