Today Young & Rubicam confirmed a reshuffling of its Chicago-based creative team: CCO Bill Cimino and Global Director of Creative Talent Michele Daly are no longer with the agency, and Creative Directors Jeremy Smallwood (pic to the left) and Pam Mufson (pic after the jump) have been promoted along with Global Talent Coordinator Alexis Gianoulis.
Y&R has no word on where Cimino is heading, only that the director and the agency “agreed to part ways” effective immediately. In his place, Smallwood and Mufson will hold the shared position of co-executive creative director (both had been CDs since 2011).
Smallwood joined Y&R Chicago after serving as CD at mcgarrybowen and ACD at Leo Burnett. His career trajectory closely mirrors that of Mufson, who also held ACD positions at those agencies at approximately the same time. The release notes that the pair have “worked together as creative partners for 13 years” and that they will report to Y&R Chicago President Kary McIlwain and Global CCO Tony Granger.
McIlwain writes:
“For four years, Jeremy and Pam have contributed to some of our agency’s best creative work…They have wonderful ideas on how to grow our clients’ brands and improve our creative processes, and I can’t wait to see what they do.”
The two will now lead creative work on all Y&R Chicago accounts including Barilla, Butterball, Carfax, and DoubleTree.
Cimino started his ad career as a copywriter in DDB’s Windy City office in 1993. In late 2012, he replaced outgoing Y&R Chicago CCO Bob Winter, who left to join CP+B Miami and landed the partner/ECD role at VSA last March. Cimino’s move to Y&R occurred less than two years after he was promoted to the ECD position at DDB along with colleagues Mark Gross and Ewan Paterson.
Daly, who left Y&R over the holidays, is now CCTO or “chief creative talent officer” at Saatchi & Saatchi New York under Pablo Del Campo, who assumed the worldwide CD role in March. This will not be her first stint with the Saatchi organization: she served as worldwide director of creative talent under Bob Isherwood from 2004 to 2008, leaving the agency for Y&R at approximately the same time that Isherwood stepped down.
Granger confirmed that Gianoulis will replace Daly, writing:
“Alexis Gianoulis has been promoted to lead creative recruitment and creative talent management for the Y&R global network. This is a natural transition as Alexis has been part of my global team working alongside Michele Daly for the last few years and already has relationships with the creative leadership across the network. Michele has chosen to take on a new challenge outside of Y&R. We have worked together for a long time and I will miss her, but I support her decision and she remains a close friend.”