Kate Daggett, who became the first-ever chief creative officer at indie agency Rauxa last summer, will be leaving after this week to accept a job on Facebook’s team.
A spokesperson told us that Daggett had been offered a great opportunity at Facebook and that she leaves on good terms, though the agency had initially planned to have her run its creative efforts for far longer than six months. The precise nature of the new role is not clear, but we do hear that its an internal creative leadership position.
Moving forward, the agency plans to work via a model in which three ECDs simultaneously lead its creative department as part of a larger move to flatten its structure. John Avery, longtime veteran of Deutsch’s VW team, holds that position in L.A. while George Singer, who has been with Rauxa since 2009 and works on its Verizon business, serves as ECD in New York. The re-organization had already begun at the time Daggett got the call from Facebook, and Rauxa also plans to announce the hire of a third creative lead in coming weeks.
Early last year, Verizon consolidated the portion of its FiOS direct marketing business that had been at MRM//McCann with Rauxa. The former agency then went through a series of executive-level departures including that of CEO Michael McLaren, who is now with Merkle.
Just over a week ago, Rauxa also officially launched its Culver City-based content marketing arm, Cats on the Roof, under the tagline “Tell better stories.” This unit has been in operation for several months and already completed projects for brands including Verizon, Best Buy, Swarovski and 20th Century Fox (see below).
Daggett becomes the latest in a long line of creative industry veterans who have accepted jobs within The Social Network. Other recent Facebook hires from the agency world include:
- Former Arnold New York chief creative officer Aaron Griffiths
- Former Y&R ECD and Razorfish creative Scott Larson
- Commonwealth//McCann ECD Rick Dennis, who is now a creative strategist at Facebook’s Detroit office
- And, of course, Andrew Keller
We undoubtedly missed a few.
Daggett joined Rauxa after holding ECD-level roles at Tenthwave Digital (recently acquired by Wire Stone), DigitasLBi and TBWA New York.