LONDON  – Former Cirkle MD Ruth Allchurch is the new managing director of Cohn & Wolfe’s consumer brand business in the UK.

Reporting to Cohn & Wolfe UK MD Rebecca Grant, Allchurch will be responsible for continuing the practice’s success: in 2017 revenues grew by 23% and the team achieved recognition for the quality of its creative work.

Allchurch was managing director of Cirkle from the start of 2014 to last September. Before that, she spent eight years at Diageo, leaving as head of brand PR for Western Europe, where she led brand strategy across 14 countries. She is currently chairman of the PRCA’s Consumer Group.

This is Allchurch’s second stint at Cohn & Wolfe: she first joined the agency early on in her career, cutting her teeth on FMCG, retail and consumer healthcare brands.

Grant said: “I am delighted to welcome Ruth to the agency. She is a fantastic hire – a powerhouse of energy, combined with a wealth of experience from her time both client-side and within agency, plus we have a shared passion for unrelenting client service excellence.”

Allchurch started work on 1 February and said she was already getting stuck into the role: “I worked here a long time ago but it’s a completely new team and it’s changed a lot. It’s a lovely-sized agency with all the benefits of a global network, but it feels culturally very entrepreneurial. I’m getting to know the team and the breadth of consumer clients we work for: not just FMCG but also travel, retail, and consumer health, which is going from strength to strength. It is an incredibly exciting time to be joining.”

Cirkle announced this week that Ruth Kieran would replace Allchurch as managing director. .