- Adweek Staff

BOSTON Havas' Arnold said it has hired Reginald Osborne as svp, group director of multicultural marketing.

Reporting to evp Jon Tracosas, he will focus mainly on the shop's McDonald's business. The long-range goal, per Arnold, is to create an integrated capability for diversity marketing across all agency accounts.

"I am excited to be at an agency like Arnold that believes diversity is important culturally and as a resource to better serve clients and consumers in a multi-cultural marketing and communications world," Osborne said in a statement.

Added Fran Kelly, Arnold's CEO: "The world we live in and market in is growing increasingly diverse. He will be an enormous asset to Arnold and to our clients."

Osborne joins from Novartis Pharmaceuticals, where he most recently served as associate director of multicultural marketing. Prior to Novartis, he was at Spike DDB, where he worked on clients such as Jaguar, ExxonMobil, Foxwoods and State Farm Insurance. Other agency stops include Grey and Ted Bates.

Arnold has championed multiculturalism in the workplace. The Ad Club of Boston's Arnold Rosoff Awards celebrating industry diversity are named for one of the agency's founders.

The move is in keeping with industry trends, as agencies large and small have heightened their diversity efforts in the wake of continued criticism from some quarters that the ad business is too white and male-centric.