Sean Finnegan, Agency Veteran Turned Marketing Entrepreneur, Dies at 50

Sean M. Finnegan, whose three-decade career spanned leading roles as a media buyer and planner, digital advertising pioneer and an adviser, investor and leader who bridged the worlds of technology, branding and media, died April 29 in Washington, D.C. of a heart attack. He was 50 years old.

The Finnegan family will be holding a memorial later this month. Information can be found on a site the family has dedicated to Finnegan’s memory, The Great Connector. (Friends have also set up a memorial fund for his family here.)

In a statement, Sean’s wife Melody said: “We would like to thank Sean’s great community of partners, colleagues, family and friends—and especially the intimate circle who have quite literally been ‘boots on the ground’—for the great outpouring of love, spiritual care and the meeting of needs, which has helped to assuage this crushing blow, thereby giving my children and me the precious experience of God’s love in action.”

A memorial service will be held on May 16th at 1pm at:

Willow Creek Community Church, 67 Algonquin Road, South Barrington, IL. 60010

Finnegan was born in Chicago on Aug. 30, 1971. After starting out as a media buying and planning executive in New York, he spent the bulk of his nearly 30-year career primarily in and around Chicago.

“Sean was one of those rare magnetic people whose presence was felt in every room he was in, and who always worked to lift others up,” David Berkowitz, svp at omnichannel platform Mediaocean and founder of the Serial Marketers community, told Adweek.

An endlessly peripatetic executive who was seemingly at any and every industry event from SXSW to the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame and Cannes Lions, Finnegan was a magnet to both agency and brand leaders as well as celebrities.

At the same time, he was just as well known as a devoted father of seven children—Hunter, Morgan, Claire, Logan, Declan, Cuyler and Keefer—and to his wife. They met at Kentucky’s Murray State University, where he graduated in 1993 after majoring in marketing and advertising. Other immediate survivors include his mother Teri, brothers Paul, Connor, Kenny, Patrick and sister Celine. He was preceded in death by his father, Michael, in 2021.

Up until his death, Finnegan had been juggling chief executive posts at three entities he founded. He started his most recent venture, VO Partners, in August. The company matches brand decision-makers with agencies, media and software companies working across commerce, creators, the metaverse and philanthropy.

VO also operates as a quasi-venture capital firm, investing in startups such as Cameo, shoppable content provider Firework, NFT platform Tokenology and Jonas Group Entertainment.

Finnegan was also in charge of marketing and tech consultancy Chameleon Collective, which he founded in January 2016, and The Room, a private events company for C-suite networking founded in 2018.

His advertising career began when he joined BBDO New York after graduating college. Finnegan focused on spot TV buying and print planning. As the internet emerged in the mid-1990s, Finnegan turned his interest to new media. He helped build interactive agencies as Darwin Digital (which was eventually absorbed into Zenith), APL Digital, JWT Digital and most notably at the time, Tribal DDB.

In 2001, Finnegan was named Midwest director of OMD Digital. He was promoted to lead OMD Digital nationally and relocated again to New York. He held that post for three years before forming OGD Digital.

In October 2008, following a stint as CMO of in-text advertising startup Vibrant Media, Finnegan was named president and chief digital officer of Publicis Groupe’s Starcom Mediavest Group. In that job, Finnegan succeeded Curt Hecht, another widely respected trailblazing agency and digital media executive who died of cancer at 47 in 2015.

Finnegan traded working at agencies when he formed his first consultancy, the C4 Group, in 2011. The company was acquired in January 2014 by digital advertising and social media services provider TrueX. Finnegan briefly stayed on as chief strategy officer. But his restless independent streak spurred him to continue forming new projects that built on his personal notions and desires of connecting people and ideas.

When news of Finnegan’s sudden passing spread on social media Saturday, industry friends and associates shared their shocked and saddened reactions.

“Sean saw things early and from the outside,” Rishad Tobaccowala, agency consultant and author known for his long association with Publicis Groupe, told Adweek. “Early, since he understood and felt digital change. Outside, since he was in Chicago and not based in New York or San Francisco. As a person, Sean was the life of a party—the ultimate insider. But if you sat with him alone, you felt an even greater kindness and connection since he could just be Sean.”