Jonah Bloom, a veteran of KBS who also worked in journalism for more than a decade and served as editor of AdAge, will be leaving the MDC Partners shop.
CEO Guy Hayward made the announcement in an all-staff meeting last week.
“Jonah has had a tremendous impact on KBS’ growth and evolution over the past seven years and he certainly will be missed,” said Hayward. “But there are exciting things on the horizon for the agency and we are committed to finding a worthy successor.”
“I could not have enjoyed my six and a half years at KBS more, and I’m very proud of what we built in my time there,” said Bloom in his own statement. “We grew the strategy team from half a dozen people to more than 40 of the most diverse, talented thinkers imaginable, with a range of skills from brand strategy through content strategy, data and analytics, product architecture and even business strategy. The content practice that we founded went from being a successful unit to being a way of thinking and a revenue driver across the entire business. We won more than two dozen new clients and the agency went from being a New York shop to six offices across three continents.”
“It is tough to leave such a great place, but the rapid changes in the media and marketing landscape make it an exciting time to try something new so I’m taking the plunge,” he continued. “I wish my colleagues at KBS all the best.”
As noted, Bloom was a longtime journalist who served as editor of several trade publications including Campaign Media, PR Week, AdAge and Breaking Media, the blog network founded by Gawker’s Elizabeth Spiers (its sites include Wall Street gossip blog Dealbreaker). KBS, which was still known as KBS&P at the time, hired him away from the latter company in 2011 to fill the newly-created role of executive director of content strategy. It was his first agency job.
Bloom was later promoted to chief strategy officer and, after Lori Senecal became global executive chairman, he and chief information officer Matt Powell were named co-presidents at KBS New York.
Almost exactly one year ago, Bloom was promoted to global CSO in a round of promotions that saw Matt Powell take on the global chief technology officer role as Katie Klumper became president.
The reasons for Bloom’s departure are unclear at this time, as are his future plans.