Redwood's globe-trotter sets sights on conquering the US.(James McLeod)(Brief Article)

James McLeod is heading for New York as Redwood's president

For a man who's endured a 642-mile weekly commute from Nice to London for the past five years, the move to New York comes as something of a relief for James McLeod, the newly appointed president of Redwood International.

Having spent most of his working life abroad, the 41-year-old Old Etonian last week followed his wife and two children to their new home in Mamaroneck, where New York State meets Connecticut.

On the surface, his new remit as the New York-based president of the customer publisher's international arm will bring little change from the role he has performed out of Redwood's London office for the past three years. McLeod will continue to oversee the company's international portfolio -- joint ventures in Toronto and Hong Kong accounting for more than 13 million [pounds sterling] of revenue for Redwood International within its first 12 months--but his presence in parent company BBDO's New York offices marks a shift in Redwood's international publishing policy.

"America is obviously very developed in CRM terms, but there's less of a culture of the kind of top quality customer magazine programmes that we specialise in," he explains. "There are less independent specialist agencies out there, instead customer magazines tend to be run by mainstream magazine publishers such as Time Warner and Meredith."

Redwood has taken a different approach to US expansion compared with its UK rivals Premier Media Partners and John Brown Publishing, both of which initiated their US expansion plans with the creation of a New York office.

"We've tried to understand the market first, by working with WSP Marketing in Toronto, before going into a new territory totally blind," McLeod explains.