After spending over six years at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, where he last served as group strategy director, Michael Davidson is heading over to fellow San Francisco agency, Venables Bell & Partners, to assume the title of head of strategy. Davidson (the staring far off into the distance look never fails), who actually had two stints at Goodby, first serving as planning director at the agency in the early aughts, will now head up said department at VB&P, which of course counts notable clients including Intel, Audi and Google. This marks for a reunion of sorts for Davidson and current VB+P managing director, Paul Birks-Hay, as the pair worked together at AMV BBDO earlier in their careers. In addition to AMV, Davidson spent two years in the U.K. at TBWA London, working on Labour Party’s General Election Campaign and reporting directly to Tony Blair.
Along with new head of strategy, Venables Bell & Partners has added more to the department in group strategy director Leander Chapman, aka “Chappy” (we can dig it), who most recently ran his own consultancy and has previously served strategy director for Translation among other agency gigs.