Doner said good-bye to ad legend and Vice Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Doner, John Decerchio, yesterday. Decerchio has retired and right after they built him a new luxury office, too. Hell, when you’re ready to go, you are ready to go and now, Strasberg has a new beautiful place to rest his weary head. Doner will be making a comment to us later today, so check back.
A little about Decerchio – he is partially responsible for bringing Doner back from the ashes. The company was founded in 1937, but was more focused on regional accounts in the Detroit area. Then, in 1996, Doner Southfield office was destroyed in a fire in 1996. Alan Kalter, Doner’s chairman and CEO, and DeCerchio, decided it was a good time to make some changes including competing for big national accounts and making alliances with global ad agencies while remaining independent. Since that fateful day, Doner has almost tripled in size and is a contender for some of the biggest brands out there. John is a legend in many respects. We’re sure the shop will miss him.
Doner has recently made some other changes in its roster:
Rob Strasberg joined Doner from Crispin to replace John as the Worldwide chief creative officer. In January, Greg Clausen was named executive vice president/chief media officer. He was at Spark Communications. The company also promoted Judy Ratcliffe to senior vice president, account director from vice president, account director.