MEDIA PERSPECTIVE: Media will miss the passion that drove Ingram to success.(Brief Article)

Now that Chris Ingram has officially left the media business, unguarded admiration has been pouring in from all sides and, released from the usual requirements for barbed cynicism, I'm joining in.

Chris Ingram might have cheesed a few people off along the way (impossible not to in 40 years), but as the business bid him adieu last week he was afforded godly status.

In case you've been living down a hole for the past few years (or working in a creative department), here's why Ingram deserves such applause: Ingram is the only UK media man to launch his own media independent, grow it into a fully fledged international business, expand into a broader communications offering and sell out to WPP, netting a personal fortune of pounds 64 million.

But more importantly, in a media industry characterised at the top by earn-outers and the over-paid/under-enthused, Ingram managed to retain a genuine thirst for the communications craft. For a quiet, perhaps shy and - to the casual observer - rather grey man, he injected a passion and excitement into this business that is harder and harder to find.

OK, actually I can't resist a couple of spikes about CIA's London office while I'm here. Never have I heard so much wisdom spoken under the roof of one agency, but never have I seen an agency so resolutely fail to deliver on its promise. CIA London has been a mess for many years, probably since Ingram shifted his own focus internationally.