Close-Up: Newsmaker - Passionate Fink takes on M&C's conservatism.(Graham Fink, M&C Saatchi London)

Graham Fink's appointment shows that M&C Saatchi is still hung up on the glory of its past, Francesca Newland writes.

Graham Fink is exhausted. It's the end of his first day in his new job, one that kicked off with a 6am start. It has not been your run-of-the-mill first day, either: he has been rushed headlong into M&C Saatchi's repitch for the pounds 60 million global British Airways account.

The agency had a day-and-a-half's briefing, beginning last Thursday, and M&C Saatchi's newly named creative director is going to lead the agency into battle.

From the outside, it looks as if M&C Saatchi's motivation for appointing Fink had more to do with its short-term needs on British Airways than long-term ambition to hire the perfect candidate to build its creative department into a market-leader.

But Moray MacLennan, the agency's group chairman, thinks it has met both criteria with Fink's hiring. 'It helps that he could start today, but that's a happy coincidence,' he says. 'There will be life after 9 September (pitch day), but he'll focus on that for the next six weeks. However, it's an appointment for the long term, not a short-term tactical, knee-jerk reaction.'

But if it's not to do with the BA pitch, why has it happened now? After all, Fink, MacLennan, and the agency's European chairman, Nick Hurrell, have known each other for years, working together at Saatchi & Saatchi in the late 80s and early 90s. And, as a team, they yielded some great work on Silk Cut and, importantly, the memorable 'face' spot for BA.

MacLennan says M&C Saatchi approached Fink with the creative directorship two years ago. Fink turned it down and Matt Eastwood eventually took the job. Fink explains that he felt he hadn't yet established his production company, thefinktank, which has now been running for four-and-a-half years.