Y&R followed up on last week’s changes in its Chicago team by adding a new name to the top of its Manhattan-based creative department: Leslie Sims will be CCO at Y&R New York beginning next month.
Sims joins Y&R from the McCann organization, where she spent more than 15 years.
This marks the latest executive move for Young & Rubicam, which promoted former EVP/Global Creative Director Jim Radosevic to president of Y&R New York and named General Manager Sean Howard as leader of its North American operations back in May. Last week brought news that Chicago CCO Bill Cimino would be leaving the agency and that CDs Jeremy Smallwood and Pam Mufson would share the ECD role moving forward. That move also saw the promotion of Global Talent Coordinator Alexis Gianoulis; she replaces outgoing Director of Creative Talent Michele Daly, who is now with Saatchi & Saatchi New York.
The agency made recent changes outside its creative department as well, hiring media planner Dick de Lange — who previously ran Nike at R/GA — in September.
Sims joined McCann as a copywriter in 1998 and quickly moved up the ranks within the agency. In 2010 she was promoted to the EVP/ECD position working on the agency’s various General Mills clients, and in 2012 her responsibilities expanded to include work for clients ranging from the US Postal Service to the National Breast Cancer coalition. In her new role she will report to Global CCO Tony Granger.
Sims replaces Jim Elliot, the GS&P veteran named to lead the New York team in 2011. No word on where he’s heading.