Media Perspective: Lawson equipped to take UK success on to broader stage.(Nick Lawson)

WPP has been mining its rich seam of UK media talent lately. After weeks of negotiation, it has installed Nick Theakstone as the replacement for the Group M chief executive, Stephen Allan, who became MediaCom's worldwide chief executive in April.

Due to further changes instigated by Allan at MediaCom, it also needed to find the resource to fill the ample shoes of Nick Lawson, who succeeded Allan in running MediaCom and consolidated its position as the UK's largest media agency.

Lawson is to run MediaCom across EMEA and will be replaced in the UK chief executive role by Jane Ratcliffe, his sidekick for many years and an appointment that points to a strong succession plan and a depth of management talent at the UK agency. Lawson is taking on a serious challenge, overseeing close to 40 markets, and is moving into a role that has been vacant since 2002 when Alexander Schmidt-Vogel, Allan's predecessor, was promoted to global chief.

While Lawson is hardly letting go of the UK - MediaCom's success here means that it will be a key part of his European remit - he faces many fresh issues. These link with the global challenges faced by Allan. Positive on the one hand because MediaCom has considerable international growth potential from existing clients that are patchy in their use of the full resources of the network. But with room for improvement on the other hand because of the network's historic lack of ...