LONDON (AFP) -- Advertising executive Maurice Saatchi was named co-chairman of Britain's opposition Conservative Party late on Sunday, the party announced.

Saatchi, a life peer in the House of Lords since 1996, was appointed by the Conservatives' new leader Michael Howard to take charge of the party's machinery.

Saatchi, who founded the M and C Saatchi advertising agency with his brother Charles, was a Tory spokesman for economic affairs in the House of Lords.

He was also a key advisor to Howard, who was finance spokesman in the shadow cabinet of the previous Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.

Liam Fox, who was shadow health minister, was named by Howard as co-chairman for getting out the Conservative message.

Since its creation in 1911, the post of Conservative party chairman was split only once, for six months in 1963.

In naming Saatchi and Fox co-chairmen, Howard did not specify the role of Theresa May, the party's first chairwoman who was appointed by Duncan Smith. Saatchi played a major role in helping Margaret Thatcher to become Conservative prime minister in 1979, supposedly being the brainchild behind an election poster depicting an unemployment queue with the slogan: "Labour Isn't Working."

Howard, 62, was elected Conservative leader Thursday, the only candidate for the job after Duncan Smith lost a confidence vote in October.