NEW YORK Saatchi & Saatchi has filled the top account management slot in its Torrance, Calif., office with Craig Rowley, former president of Borders Perrin Norrander in Portland, Ore.
The position, executive director of account management, had been vacant since last year. Rowley, 45, will oversee some 50 staffers in the department and report to office president Chuck Maguy.
Rowley (pictured), who started this week, spent nearly two years at Borders Perrin, an independent shop whose clients include Valvoline and Columbia Sportswear.
Before that, he spent 10 years at Interpublic Group’s Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis, where he worked on Harley-Davidson and Porsche and rose to director of account management.
Earlier in his career, Rowley was deputy managing director at Young & Rubicam in Warsaw, Poland, and an account supervisor at Hal Riney & Partners in San Francisco.
At Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi, his primary focus is cornerstone client Toyota, for which the agency handles national, dealer and financial services advertising. “Craig’s extensive digital and automotive experience strengthens our ability to generate and produce ideas that will keep Toyota at the forefront of the industry,” said Maguy, in a statement.
Rowley joins the agency four months after Edward Yu, a group account director on Toyota, left, and six months after Maguy returned as president.
Maguy worked eight years at the shop before leaving in the spring of 2008 to become an executive director at sister shop Team One in El Segundo, Calif. He re-joined Saatchi in March.
Rowley described his new role as a “huge opportunity” to work on a “great brand” that he further described as “well-positioned for the economy and what’s going on in the marketplace.”
