Y&R’s Goldsmith doesn’t let the door hit his ass on the way out

Gary Goldsmith, North American chief creative officer at Young & Rubicam based in NYC, bailed out of the agency after 2 1/2 years, Y&R confirmed today.

He became more than a tad redundant to the Y&R family when worldwide CEO Hamish McLennan’s went out and hired Saatchi & Saatchi CCO Tony Granger as worldwide creative director back in November 2007.

Granger has not yet started at his new gig, given a lengthy notice period in his Saatchi contract, but sources now expect him to arrive in early May. He’ll be based in the New York office.

Y&R said only that Goldsmith was exiting to “pursue other interests.” (ed note: where on the carousel do you figure he’ll end up?)

More from Adweek:

“Since McLennan took the reins of Y&R in June 2006, several top executives have left, including his predecessor, Ann Fudge, who also was CEO of Y&R Brands; worldwide creative director Michael Patti; global vice chairman June Blocklin; and North American chief marketing officer Sally Kennedy. All four left at the end of 2006.

At the same time, McLennan has made several top hires, chief among them Granger and global chief digital officer Tarik Sedky, who returned to Y&R last summer from Atmosphere BBDO. Last spring, McLennan also recruited Mitch Caplan from The Kaplan Thaler Group here to fill the North American CMO role.”

There seems to be a fuck of a lot of turmoil in the creative end of the business these days — hey commenters (not too sound too Seinfeld about it all) but “What’s the fucking deal do you figure?” Is it cyclical, the clients, the suits doing their irrational freakout to cover their own fuckups? Possibilities abound!