Rokkan, the New York-based digital agency which became a Publicis property in 2012, said goodbye to its founding partner and chief creative officer Charles Bae this week. Bae himself tells us, “I’m taking a much needed break from the ad world and focusing on other personal goals.”
We last heard from Rokkan in December when Publicis decided to fold the Manhattan offices of Leo Burnett Business into the “larger and fast-growing sister entity.”
The shop’s CEO and co-founder John Noe positions Bae’s move as one that had been in the works for a while. This makes sense given that Rokkan re-hired former Saatchi & Saatchi SVP/ECD Brian Carley to serve as CCO in early 2013.
Noe writes:
“Charles’ departure was a work in the making for quite some time and something we had planned for together. He leaves his creative reins to Brian Carley, Chief Creative Officer, who joined Rokkan from Saatchi & Saatchi where he served as ECD. Brian has had creative leadership over the group the past few years in anticipation of Charles’ departure. 2016 already proves to be our best year to date with upcoming work and wins not yet announced.
Charles, Chung and I share an immensely powerful bond having grown our agency from nothing over 15-and-a-half years. And as grateful as we are for his partnership during that time, we’re even more grateful for his friendship. Success will follow Charles wherever he goes and we send him off with our love and admiration.”
Yesterday, Bae and fellow co-founder/chief experience officer and managing partner Chung Ng celebrated with some Popeye’s, which we would argue is slightly better than KFC.
Farewell lunch courtesy of @chungwng @rokkan. Thx for the Popeyes and Coke send off! https://t.co/4E6TrZk6wt
— Charles Bae (@charlesbae) March 31, 2016
Ng, who launched Rokkan along with Bae and Noe way back in 2001, is making moves of his own: earlier this week, Rokkan announced plans to open a new office in Singapore which he will run. He said, “There is huge opportunity in this market to apply Rokkan’s experience and expertise in building customer centric experiences for travel, CPG and luxury.” Ng will leave New York along with former VP of client partnership Anthea Tang, who has been promoted to GM of the new office.