Close-Up: Profile - Can Hunter reboot the Euro RSCG turnaround?(Mark Hunter)

At last, Mark Cadman and Russ Lidstone have named their new creative director. Can he cut it, James Hamilton asks?

If Mark Cadman and Russ Lidstone are feeling the strain of having spent the past year wrestling with the tiller of a once-struggling network shop, they don't show it.

Relaxed and smiling, they give little outward indication of the struggles they've encountered in the 12 months since they joined Euro RSCG London as the chief executive and chief strategy officer, respectively.

That's not to say the pair can afford to put their feet up - far from it - but they say they're proud of what they've achieved so far.

A year ago, Euro RSCG London was in a perilous state. Rudderless for six months following Ben Langdon's ousting as the chairman in September 2005, the agency was haemorrhaging business. The pounds 56 million Credit Suisse account went to McCann Erickson; the pounds 35 million Argos account to Clemmow Hornby Inge. These blows were compounded when the Man from Del Monte said a firm 'no'. He was joined by Cadbury, Matalan and Travelodge in quick succession. When they joined, the agency was all set to post a large loss.

'There was nothing holding the agency together,' a Euro source says 'The previous regime was hugely adversarial and confrontational, and people just burrowed down and hid.'

Cadman stresses he and Lidstone had been well briefed as to the problems they would face at the beleaguered London office. 'I don't think there were any nasty surprises for us when we got here,' he says. Just a big job.