Droga5 Makes Changes to Its Strategy Department Leadership

By Erik Oster 

Droga5 promoted Colm Murphy and Harry Román-Torres to roles as co-heads of the agency’s strategy department as former head of strategy Chet Gulland announced his plans to depart for a new (undisclosed) venture at the end of the month. Murphy and Román-Torres join now chief strategy officer Jonny Bauer, head of communications strategy Colleen Leddy and head of data strategy Andrew Tully atop the department.

“We are excited to double down on leadership with two of the kindest, most creative and capable people in the industry. Together with Colleen and Andrew, Colm and Harry will continue to build and grow the influence of our 70-plus-strong Strategy team,” said Bauer.

Gulland has served as Droga5’s head of strategy since September of 2014. He originally joined the agency as strategy director in January of 2009, leading strategy on brands including Puma, Rhapsody, Unilever, Activision, as well as on new business. He left briefly nearly two years later to serve as head of strategy at The Barbarian Group for a year and a half and returned as head of digital strategy in June of 2012. Prior to joining Droga5 in 2009, he served in senior strategy roles with Next Great Thing and Anomaly.

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“It is always tough when the good ones go, but we respect that, after six years, he has the urge to stretch his legs. Chet is family. We will miss him greatly and wish him every success in his next venture,” Bauer added.

After joining Droga5 as a strategy director in June of 2014, Murphy was promoted to group strategy director the following May. Before joining Droga5, he spent over three and a half years as planning director with JWT New York, working on global accounts including Puma and Rolex. He originally joined JWT as an analyst with JWT London in June of 2005 and became a planner in 2007.

Román-Torres originally joined Droga5 as a senior strategist in October of 2008, serving as lead planner on Hennessy/LVMH, Suave/Unilever, UNICEF TAP, WindMade, Activision, and Tracfone/Net10, while also working on new business. He left the agency to become director of strategy at Leo Burnett New York in early 2012, followed by a brief stint as insights leader at Google Primer, before returning to Droga5 as group strategy director in early 2015. Before his first stint with the agency, he spent nearly two years as a planner with Taxi NYC, and two years as a junior planner with The Cartel Group before that.

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