Havas Worldwide Chicago appointed Jennifer Marszalek as Chief Talent Officer, responsible for recruiting talent for the agency across disciplines, Adweek reports.
Marszalek joins the agency from online and mobile food delivery service GrubHub, where she has served as vice president, human resources since January, following over a year and a half as director of people. Before that she spent around four years as director of human resources for SurePayroll and eleven years in various human resources and talent management roles with Room & Board.
Havas global Chief Talent Officer Patti Clifford told Adweek that Marszalek’s background in tech would help Havas compete for talent outside the ad industry. “
“We looked at a broad range of candidates and what attracted us was Jennifer’s experience with a tech start-up plus great HR experience,” he said.
“Our industry is under intense pressure to evolve the value creativity brings to brands, and we are increasingly hiring from outside of the advertising industry—from start-ups and technology firms to business consultants, social media experts and content creators,” added Havas Worldwide Chicago CEO Paul Marobella.
Havas isn’t the only agency to look outside of advertising for its newest head of HR. Last year, for example, Omnicom’s RAPP named a chief talent officer who had worked in consumer goods.