Rupert Howell, who once ran the advertising agency behind the "You've been Tangoed" campaign, was today named as the head of ITV's sales and marketing operations.

The high-profile 50-year-old's arrival completes the restructuring of the top team by executive chairman Michael Grade, and positions Howell as a favourite for becoming chief executive in the future. Michael Grade has said that he would step aside from an executive role at the end of the decade.

The commercial broadcaster's chairman had wanted to avoid appointing a sales director from ITV or another television company, in the belief that ITV has to rethink the way it sells advertising. Mr Howell had most recently run Interpublic's McCann Erickson in Europe, but departed earlier this year amid differences over strategy. But he is best known for being the business brains behind HHCL, one of the best-known agencies of the 1990s, prior to its sale in 1997 to Chime Communications.

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