Michael Mainelli has won a highly prestigious assignment with DERA (formerly the Defence Research Agency) through Morgan Grenfell & Co. effectively adding both of those esteemed names to our client list in one fell swoop.

Michael will spend 70% of his working time as ex-officio Group Corporate Development Director for this £1B annual turnover, 10,000 employee research agency one of the largest scientific research bodies in the world (if not, the largest).

Michael will report directly to the Chief Executive John Chisholm (ex Sema Group) and will be responsible for (amongst other things) including hi-tec. joint ventures and outsourcing parts of the research agency.

The assignment will run for an initial period of six months with an option to revise and/or extend the assignment after that.

A spokesperson for Z/Yen, Ian Harris, elucidated "we’ve brought in the big guns and it has given us the shot in the arm we needed to launch Z/Yen into the front line." Harris’ use of pertinent metaphor then became so infuriating that we abruptly ended the interview

Mainelli hopes to get a chance to play with some of the fancy flying toys which he has seen emblazoned on the walls of the agency.

He is already making some Z/Yen folk green with his fast talk. When he comes back down to earth, he’ll be working flat out on a strategic corporate development document which will for the main thrust of DERA’s Corporate Plan for 1996.