MEDIA: HEADLINER - Old-school media man set to take Billetts into global future.

Ron de Pear's experience will be a valuable asset to Billetts, Alasdair Reid says.

We can count ourselves lucky in catching up with Ron de Pear at all. Our photographer has almost to ambush him between meetings as he ties up loose ends - he has several non-executive directorships and a nascent consultancy business - before he takes up his new position as the chief executive of the European and Asian operations of Billetts International.

This is the first major announcement in what may prove to be an ambitious autumn for Billetts as it strives to become a global brand. It has offices in France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Scandinavia and is soon to open offices in the US also. De Pear's task will be to consolidate the network, ensuring a uniform application of best practice, while continuing to extend its scope.

But there's a big client-facing job to be done too - although many multinational clients accept the need for the independent monitoring of their media performance, in many local markets the procedure is far from established.

There's an evangelical job to be done and many feel that this is where de Pear will have most to offer. His ability to build client relationships is, say many, his strongest suit.

De Pear won't deny that those skills might come in useful. He says: 'Monitoring is now a fact of life in all businesses and media is no exception. Also, increasingly, the business is being restructured regionally and globally and media is taken very seriously by regional and global clients. Look at the increasing involvement of procurement divisions in agency appointments.

And I'd like to think I have account-handling skills from my time at J. Walter Thompson and I can use those skills to get clients to look at this in a fresh way.'