Mother U.S. made a series of leadership changes in New York and Los Angeles.
Mother U.S. named two agency veterans as equity partners: Aarti Thiagarajan and Charlie McKittrick. In their new roles, they will serve alongside Mother U.S.’s existing agency partners: creative chairman Paul Malmstrom (pictured next to a statue of a cockatoo, which “represents the quiet storm that brews inside the walls of Mother”), Mother U.S. CEO Peter Ravailhe and Mother New York CCO Corinna Falusi (pictured next to a carafe of “her favorite secret potion that holds the secret to creative genius”). Additionally, Thiagarajan will now serve as managing director for Mother’s New York office and McKittrick will take on the role of chief strategy officer for Mother U.S., while James Fraser will take on McKittrick’s former role as head of strategy for Mother New York, serving alongside Thiagarajan and Falusi as part of the office’s leadership team.
“This has been in the works for quite some time, and what you see is the natural progression of our most talented people,” Malmstrom told AgencySpy. “But what is at the core of our agency is how we organize ourselves into ‘triads,’ whether it be for our clients or our own business, where each triad consists of ‘Strategy, Creative and Mothering.’ Similarly, this is how we’ve organized our two offices in New York and Los Angeles.”
“Mother in the US has experienced a couple of exciting things over the last 18 months: double digit growth in our business and opening an office in Los Angeles,” added Ravailhe. “As a result of this and our longer term creative & commercial ambitions, the time was right to restructure the business to continue the momentum that has been generated over the past 18 months, whilst maintaining an incredibly nimble and creatively entrepreneurial mindset.”
Thiagarajan (pictured, top right, on top of her favorite book, The Complete Manual For Home Repair) first joined Mother’s New York office in 2011, following four years as senior partner, executive marketing director for Ogilvy & Mather New York. She previously served as an account manger and “head of Mothers” and Malmstorm said she has “grown into the role of being one of the most badass managing directors out there.”
McKittrick (pictured next to a chess piece, as his ancestors were “possibly knights”) joined Mother New York back in 2011, following nearly a decade with Ogilvy & Mather, most recently as executive director, strategy for the agency’s consulting group.
Fraser (pictured next to an alligator skull, the “unused part of his favorite alligator skin trench coat”) who Malmstorm said “has always been one of the smartest voices in the room,” has served as strategy director for Mother in New York since 2015, when he relocated from Mother’s London office. While with the agency he has worked with brands including Stella Artois, Ritz, Boots and Amnesty International. Before joining Mother, he served as global communications planner for Mindshare.
The new appointments follows the arrival of executive creative director Joe Staples (whose jiu-jitsu prowess is represented by a porcelain fist in the photo) to the agency’s Los Angeles office, joining Romain Naegelen, who joined Mother as managing director in Los Angeles in January of 2017. In May, Virgin namied Mother as agency of record for its new Virgin Voyages brand.
“At our core we want to leverage our independence and the fact that culturally we are a values-driven company,” Ravailhe told AgencySpy. “We want Mother to create a sense of belonging and home to the broader creative communities that power these incredible cities of New York and Los Angeles. That’s how we believe we can provide new and different perspectives for our clients’ businesses and their growth.”
“Mother believes that creativity is the most valuable commodity of the 21st century,” he continued. “Never more has there been a time where we should stand up as an industry and believe in the power of creativity and all the wonderful humans that contribute directly to its impact on business growth, transformation and inspiration.”
“Our ambition has always been to be as attractive as possible to the creative community,” Malmstrom added. “Two offices, but one Mother. The Mother is now even more eclectic under these new leaders.”
Photo: Blaise Cepis for Mother