Nonprofit Effie Worldwide, sponsor of your favorite Effie Awards, has named a new president and CEO; current head Mary Lee Keane simultaneously announced plans to retire this summer after 20 years spent leading the organization.
Neal Davies, co-founder and partner at New York’s Naked Communications, will assume the top role in June.
Davies will be Effie’s first leader with an agency background: he moved from an in-house position at Kodak to assume top roles at TBWA and McCann before launching Naked’s New York office in 2006.
And he has some big shoes to fill…
As Anomaly co-founder/chairman of the Effie board Carl Johnson put it in the release, Keane “has been the foundation stone upon which Effie Worldwide was built”. In her two decades with the organization, she helped to greatly expand its global influence, most recently creating the Positive Change Award to better recognize marketers promoting sustainability.
Davies will report to the organization’s board of directors while overseeing both its New York team and “its 44 international partners.”