Close-Up: Profile - Howarth rejoins Hornby to take CHI to next level.

Is it jobs for the boys or will Nick Howarth bring more edge to Clemmow Hornby Inge's offer? Emma Barns investigates.

Nick Howarth is excited about his imminent departure from HHCL United. Like a cheeky, overgrown schoolboy and brimming with confidence, he talks animatedly about his next job - the newly created position of group chief executive at Clemmow Hornby Inge.

'I'm going to be part of CHI's next stage of growth,' he says. 'It's a happy co-incidence that it's come up at exactly the right time for me. After ten years at HHCL, I want to do something new.'

The move will see him reunited with his former partner-in-crime, the CHI partner Johnny Hornby. The pair started out together as graduate trainees at Ogilvy & Mather more than a decade ago and have been close ever since: it was on a joint family holiday this summer that Hornby approached his friend about the role.

'Nick was always better than me at O&M and, working on the principle that you should employ people cleverer than you, he was the obvious choice,' Hornby gushes.

The obvious choice for what, though?

As Sarah Gold, the joint managing director of CHI, puts it: 'We've experienced such phenomenal growth, taking on more than pounds 60 million in new billings in the past three months alone. We need another senior suit so our existing clients don't suffer as we grow.'