Elephant Promotes Cara DiNorcia to President and Elevates 6 Leaders

IPG creative agency Elephant is restructuring, unifying its talent and operations across its East and West regions. The move will establish one leadership team, called One Elephant, while elevating a set of new leaders to focus on growth. As part of the shift, Eric Moore is stepping down as CEO after six years of building the agency. Cara DiNorcia will take over as president, and the agency will do away with the CEO title. Previously managing director, West Coast, DiNorcia succeeds former president Greg Assemat Tessandier, who left the company in April. Moore will stay on through the end of June to ensure a smooth transition, and he has not announced his future plans. “With Cara’s track record building Elephant West Coast, combined with her stewardship of the Elephant brand and collaborative leadership approach, she was the natural choice,” Moore told Adweek. In addition, Elephant is making a number of additional promotions that signal Elephant’s investment in top female talent across the company. “In a post-pandemic world, where borderless working is the norm, one unified team was a natural progression for the company,” added Moore. “I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to choose the right person for Elephant’s future, its people and our clients. Cara and I have worked together for over a decade, first at Huge and now at Elephant.” More leadership changes at Elephant Since joining Elephant over four years ago, DiNorcia’s accomplishments include organizing the West Coast business into one operation across San Francisco and Los Angeles with double-digit growth, leading new wins with EA and Realtor.com, and continuing to deliver value to Elephant’s founding client, Apple. Prior to Elephant, DiNorcia was vp, integrated production and operations at Big Spaceship and before that spent over three years at Huge where she worked her way up to director of Huge Studio. “I’m thrilled and humbled to lead Elephant in its next evolution, and with an incredibly talented team of new leaders joining me,” said DiNorcia in a statement. “Our belief in creativity and delivering the best work is unwavering; it’s a game changer that sets us apart and will continue to drive growth and make an impact for our clients.” The CEO role will not be replaced, and DiNorcia will instead report to Huge global CEO, Mat Baxter. “With this change in leadership and move to One Elephant, it made sense to streamline position level relative to the executive organizational structure and groups of agencies within IPG. Although a standalone brand and entity, Elephant has been grouped with Huge since its inception,” said Moore. “Elephant was created six years ago to work solely with Apple, with Eric at the helm,” said Baxter in a statement. “Since then, Eric has led the growth of the agency from a single embedded team in Cupertino, to a standalone agency within IPG, offices on both coasts and a portfolio of top brands. He’s made innumerable contributions to Elephant over the years and we wish him all the best in his next chapter.” In addition to DiNorcia, a new set of leaders are being promoted, creating a majority of women leading the agency, including: Erica Riccobono, managing director of client services; Caroline Kirsh, gvp client services; Paula Maki, vp creative; Cicek Neftci, vp program management; Alison Cernansky, director people and culture; and Ali Ring, director talent management. The leadership changes come on the heels of Chris May being appointed Elephant’s first CCO in March. Elephant Appoints Its First Ever Chief Creative Officer, Chris May