Omaha’s Bailey Lauerman hired RAPP and BBH veteran Greg Andersen as its new CEO. Andersen, who may be best known to our readers for the lawsuit he filed against his former boss Alexei Orlov earlier this year, started the job this week after moving back to his home state of Nebraska.
Bailey Lauerman chairman and chief creative Carter Weitz said: “Greg knows how to inspire teams to develop the kind of work that brands need to be successful today … He also has a great deal of integrity—something that is demonstrated in what clients and colleagues consistently say about working with him, as well as in his commitment to fostering change that is needed in our industry.”
Andersen said, “I am truly honored to be joining Bailey Lauerman. It is an agency that I have known intimately and kept an eye on for some time,” adding that he thinks the shop will compete against other, larger agencies for new business. (Its client roster currently includes Disney, The Nebraska Tourism Commission, Panda Express, TD Ameritrade, etc.)
Andersen replaces Andy Fletcher, who left the agency in July after four years. That news followed a state audit which found that client Nebraska Tourism Commission had gone $4.4 million over budget from 2012 to 2016, though the agency has repeatedly stated that the audit had nothing to do with Fletcher’s departure and Bailey Lauerman continues to serve as the organization’s creative agency of record.
Before joining RAPP in 2013, Andersen was CEO of BBH in the U.S., and he previously held top accounts/strategy roles at various New York agencies like DeVito/Verdi, EURO RSCG, Merkley + Partners and Lowe.
The new chief executive made headlines on this blog when he left the U.S. president role at RAPP in April and subsequently filed suit against Orlov. The suit essentially claimed that Orlov fired Andersen for reporting his (alleged) discriminatory behavior to the agency’s HR department, which proceeded to do nothing. Orlov’s lawyers quickly called the charges “outrageous” and claimed that he was justified in firing Andersen, but the CEO resigned the following month.
There have been no major recent developments in that case, which continues to make its way through the Los Angeles County court system.