John O'Keeffe has the job - given to him this week by that exacting taskmaster Sir Martin Sorrell - of acting as worldwide creative director of WPP. Reporting directly to Sir Martin himself, the new recruit is to try to improve the creative quality at WPP's string of agencies - Grey, Ogilvy & Mather, J Walter Thompson and Young & Rubicam.

Mr O'Keeffe, 45, was poached from BBH, where he was the long-serving executive creative director behind what is widely considered to be the best single advertising agency in the world. But with John Hegarty, the worldwide creative director, showing little sign or inclination to retire, his path to the top of the independent firm was blocked and Sir Martin moved in.

A copywriter, Mr O'Keeffe's best known work was for clients such as Boddingtons, where BBH came up with The Cream of Manchester tagline, and Levi's - dubbed by the firm The Original Jeans. On the Levi's account, he also helped to engineer a revival for The Clash with a 1991 ad which featured a hustler challenging the hero to a pants-gambling game of pool. Should I Stay or Should I Go, the song chosen to accompany the advert, went to No1, nearly a decade after the track's original release.

He became BBH's executive creative director in 2000, and in an interview at the time, he was described as “a rottweiler with a sense of humour” - a mostly down to earth executive, whose first act was to promote a series of colleagues to support him.

Mr O'Keeffe's first job was with an electronics firm but he managed to deliver faulty switches to a nuclear facility in South Africa. That was enough to get him fired but the manager dismissing him suggested that he try advertising instead. Within a year, in 1984, he went to Saatchi & Saatchi, before jumping ship to BBH six years later as Saatchis hit trouble.

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