Jerry Buhlmann (born 26 November 1959, London, England) is a leading advertising executive and Chief Executive Officer of Aegis Group plc. He has served in this role since May 2010 and has built his career over some 30 years in the media and advertising industries.

Early Life

Jerry has lived in south west London, Surrey and Johannesburg, South Africa. Jerry attended Whitgift School, Croydon, where he was a keen swimmer and water polo player. Jerry’s mother ran a dancing school and his father was a professional engineer for Hawker Aircraft and also held positions within the oil industry ending his career as a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Career

Jerry started his professional career at Young & Rubicam in 1980 before moving to WCRS in 1983. In 1989 he started his own media agency called BBJ. Through the course of ten years, he successfully established BBJ as a leading top three media agency. In 1999, Aegis Group plc acquired BBJ, and BBJ rebranded as Vizeum in 2001.

Jerry decided to stay with Aegis. From 2000 to 2003, Jerry held the position of CEO of Carat International, responsible for the network's international clients. He restructured the business from being a significant loss-making unit to a profit-making organisation increasing the revenue from international clients by five times, and he transformed the international client profile with the addition of J&J, GM, Disney, Fox, Mattel and Kellogg’s across the region.

Following a very successful three years, Jerry was promoted to the position of CEO Aegis Media EMEA. In May 2008, Jerry was promoted again, this time to the position of CEO Aegis Media, the larger of the two divisions of Aegis Group plc. At the same time, Jerry joined the PLC Board. Jerry restructured the Executive Board and changed the leadership in the Americas and Asia Pacific regions.

In 2010, Jerry was appointed Group Chief Executive of Aegis Group plc. He identified that Aegis needed to increase the breadth of its digital business and the percentage of revenues from the US and faster growing regions (for example, Asia Pacific and Latin America). He set out and successfully executed an expansion strategy focused on organic growth supplemented by acquisitions. Jerry completed 30 acquisitions in two years and significantly improved the revenue mix of Aegis. The percentage of revenues from the US and other faster growing regions increased from 32% in 2005 to 55% of total revenue by 2012 while the percentage of digital revenues increased to 14% in 2005 to 36% in 2012, the highest percentage in the sector.

In 2010 Jerry oversaw the largest acquisition in Aegis Group’s history when Mitchell and Partners became part of Aegis Media in a transaction worth £208million. Jerry followed this significant deal in 2011 with the transformative disposal of Synovate, the market research company, to Ipsos S.A. for £528 million. This saw Aegis become the world’s leading focused media and digital communications specialist.

As well as this significant corporate activity, under Jerry’s leadership Aegis continued to report sector leading organic growth and best in class new business performance including the global win of General Motors $3billion media contract, the largest single account win in history.

In May 2012 Jerry negotiated a 240p per share cash offer with Dentsu, the Tokyo based advertising group, for Aegis Group plc. The Board recommended this cash offer to shareholders and it was approved at the GM in August 2012. The sale of Aegis Group plc to Dentsu Inc. is the largest ever transaction in the history of the advertising industry.

Personal Life

Jerry lives in Chobham, Surrey, with his wife and three children. He also has two stepchildren. He has been a Chelsea fan since he was eight years old and has been a season ticket holder since 1995. Jerry is also a keen rugby fan with debentures at Twickenham. He is a collector of wine and a keen road cyclist and skier.