360i Reshuffles Its Production Department, Names New Leader

By Patrick Coffee 

New York’s 360i confirmed rumors that first started circling yesterday: the two leaders of its production department are leaving, and today the shop named a new head of production.

The changes started happening last month when VP/head of production Joe Jaffe told staffers that Phillip Pessaro, the agency’s group director of content production, would be leaving on December 14th. This week, Jaffe himself announced his own departure. He will be replaced by longtime producer Lucia Grillo, whose first day as head of production will be January 4th.

Pessaro spent nearly two years with 360i after holding similar top positions in the production departments of Huge, Tribal Worldwide and Digitas. The reasons for his departure are unclear as he has not yet announced a new position.

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Jaffe, who joined 360i in 2013 and wrote the note confirming Pessaro’s final day in the office last month, will stay in his position until the end of the calendar year, though his next moves also remain unclear. His past agency gigs include more than six years with R/GA–where he was promoted to the managing director position after moving up through the production department–and Mullen, where he spent two years as a senior producer.

Grillo is a veteran of various New York-area production studios who spent nearly seven years at McCann working for such clients as L’Oreal, Inbev, Mobil, and Xbox in addition to working with JWT New York. Over the past decade, she’s been best known for helping to lead the New York offices of top production studio Psyop, where she “kick-started” the interactive division and pioneered “direct to brand relationships.”

More recently, she spent several months at VICE Media where she led Project (RED)’s Shopathon initiative and scored a “brand takeover” of Jimmy Kimmel Live on World AIDS Day.

Grillo will report directly to New York managing director Jonathan Goldmacher. While sources tell us that other staffers may follow Jaffe and Pessaro, we have no specific information regarding additional changes within the agency’s production team.

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