Is it really 2022? Time sure flies when you’re entering the third year of a pandemic, you’ve been working from home in your sweats and your pets are your best friends and you may be getting a bit stir crazy. But hey, business still moves forward and people are changing jobs at a rate that could make any revolving door spin off its axis.
Step through this week’s door and see what 2022 has in store for agency hires, client wins, mergers and acquisitions, product launches and promotions.
9Rooftops
9Rooftops recently welcomed Derrick Rivers as vice president and creative director. Rivers brings over 15 years of experience to 9Rooftops. He previously served as a creative director of entertainment at Cashmere, where he was responsible for all entertainment accounts, including WarnerMedia, FX and Universal. He also held full-time creative positions at AT&T, 22Squared and BBDO in Atlanta, DDB Chicago and Lipman Hearne.
Area 23
IPG Health Network announced that Franklin Williams has joined the Area 23 executive leadership team as evp, director of experience design, reporting to chief creative officer Tim Hawkey. In this newly created role, Williams will lead the agency’s digital creative output and a team of experience designers, user experience architects and creative technologists to handle the creation of all digital products.
Williams has worked at agencies inside and outside of pharma. He has worked on big healthcare clients in oncology, rare disease and mental health, as well as on consumer brands like P&G, Citi and Cadillac.
Arts & Letters Creative
Arts & Letters Creative Co. has hired Ignasi Tudela as creative director. Tudela was most recently global creative director at Polaroid in Amsterdam. In his new role with A&L, he will work on Google and soon-to-be-announced new business. Prior to joining Polaroid, Tudela spent nearly 12 years at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam where he was creative director.
Birth London
Birth London has signed director Rafael Damy. Never before represented outside his native Brazil, Damy collected three Grand Prix awards and the inaugural New York Festivals SeeHer Lens Awards.
Boldspace
Boldspace has appointed former WPP and L’Oreal executive Aivory Gaw to the newly-created role of chief brand officer. Gaw will sit on the agency’s management team, leading all brand, creative and advertising activity and teams. She joins Boldspace from WPP, where she was Global Business Development Director, leading the group’s work with GSK. She was previously at AKQA.
Brand Citizens
Brand Citizens, the purpose and impact consultancy spun out of 72andSunny, has added Lauryn Nwankpa as co-managing director and will lead alongside industry veteran Jim Moriarty. Nwankpa is a social impact strategist, start-up advisor, investor and entrepreneur. Before joining Brand Citizens, she was most recently the head of social impact at Dave, a disruptor in the banking industry. Prior to that, Nwankpa was head of social impact at Headspace.
Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners
Agency Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners (BSSP) has hired Cierra Moore as its new strategy director. In this role, Moore will lead strategy for the agency’s long-time clients, Blue Shield of California and ESPN, as well as provide strategic leadership on new business opportunities.
Moore comes to BSSP from Endeavor’s 160over90, where she served as the associate director of strategy.
Cannes Lions
Cannes Lions has announced Paul Hirsch, president, chief creative officer, Doremus, as the inaugural jury president to lead the newly launched Creative B2B Lions at the 2022 Awards. Hirsch will lead the jury for the Creative B2B Lions, which celebrate game-changing creativity and effectiveness in work for products and services that are purchased by professionals on behalf of businesses, to recognize creative excellence in the sector.
DDB
Matt Blitz has been promoted from svp, executive producer to head of integrated production at DDB Chicago. Blitz has over 20 years of experience and has won over 300 awards and accolades over the course of his career.
Dept
Data science and software engineering agency Raybeam has joined digital agency Dept. Raybeam develops custom data-centric applications and software to help brands navigate their big data challenges, increase revenue and optimize costs. Raybeam will accelerate its global growth by joining Dept. Raybeam joins Dept’s strong technology and engineering practice in the U.S., led by Rocket Insights and Devetry, both of whom joined Dept in recent years.
Dicom
Dicom Marketing Services, St. Louis’ longest running media agency, has been purchased for an undisclosed sum by True Independent Holdings. Following the successful closing of the acquisition on January 31, 2022, Dicom will become part of True Media, the flagship media buying and planning agency within the True holdings group. Effective February 1, 2022, all Dicom management and employees will join True Media and relocate to the agency’s St. Louis office located in the Westport area.
Directors Bureau
The Directors Bureau welcomes Emmy winner Natasha Lyonne to the filmmaker collective. Lyonne is a gifted creator who continually pushes boundaries as a producer, actor, writer and director, resulting in original and compelling storytelling in many forms. Uniting with The Directors Bureau marks Lyonne’s premiere global representation for branded content, advertising and music video projects.
Finn Partners
Global independent marketing and communications firm Finn Partners has hired Sabrina Guttman to lead its global technology practice. Guttman brings more than two decades of tech communications leadership to the role. She joins from the Palo Alto-based global venture capital firm Next47, where she led global marketing communications.
GroupM
GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has named JiYoung Kim as North America’s chief product and services officer. She will lead and oversee the development and deployment of GroupM Services solutions across the agency network in the region and sit on the North American executive leadership team.
In her new role, Kim will be responsible for accelerating client success and growth initiatives through market-leading client delivery and innovative products for GroupM and its agencies, including Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Essence and m/Six.
Kim comes to GroupM from her previous role as chief digital officer at Carat USA.
GYK Antler
To fuel client and agency growth agendas and evolve and expand the company’s creative capabilities, Hamlin has hired Mike Sullivan as executive creative director. Sullivan came up in the advertising world writing and leading creative for TBWA/Chiat Day, Deutsch NY, Publicis NY, DDB NY and Havas Worldwide.
Harmelin Media
Greg Ebbecke has been promoted to senior vice president, business intelligence at Philadelphia agency Harmelin Media. Ebbecke will continue to lead efforts with the business consulting team to evaluate and optimize the flow of information to inform more strategic media delivery and actionable reporting.
In addition, Lisa Reynolds has been promoted to senior vice president. Reynolds manages an account planning team and is a leader of Harmelin Media’s Healthcare Center of Excellence. She joined Harmelin Media in 2010 with a focus and passion for strategic media planning within the healthcare field.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye, a fully-integrated marketing agency within Publicis Groupe, appointed Tina Posey as chief executive officer. Posey joins Hawkeye from Omnicom Group, where she served as CEO of Javelin Agency. Based in Dallas, Posey will report to Jem Ripley, CEO, Publicis Digital Experience Group U.S. She succeeds W. Joe DeMiero in the role of CEO.
Imre
Imre has named Anna Kotis its new president of imre Health, as the company continues to elevate its life sciences offerings. Kotis has previously led commercial strategy for brands at Pfizer, Mesoblast, Inc., and Forest Laboratories. Most recently, she served as managing director of HH&Y’s H4B Chelsea.
Johnson & Sekin
Johnson & Sekin, a Dallas-based advertising and branding agency, has made its C-suite appointments. Shannon Phillips has been appointed chief design officer and will oversee all design and innovation aspects of products and services. Kat Kornegay has been appointed chief purpose officer and will oversee all functions of helping brands, teams, and organizations uncover and amplify their greater purpose within business models and across industries. Emily Florio has been appointed chief strategy officer and will provide transformational business strategy and data-driven insights across their brands and teams. Jessica Wescott has been appointed chief financial officer.
Labelium
Global digital performance agency Labelium has named Navneet Chhajer as managing director, Labelium Toronto. In this position, Chhajer accelerates the diversification of the agency’s ecommerce sector and supports its growth in the performance agency category in Canada and North America.
Chhajer was most recently with the growth marketing team at Loblaw Digital in Toronto,where he worked across multiple disciplines to drive PC Express adoption across Canada. Prior to Loblaw, Chhajer spent almost eight years at Facebook.
LaneTerralever
Digital marketing and branding agency LaneTerralever is acquiring Convince & Convert, a content marketing and customer-experience company founded by industry pioneer Jay Baer. By combining the practices of the two agencies, companies will be able to access the full scope of services needed to guide the customer-experience journey under the guidance of one cohesive team. LaneTerralever also is launching a collective called Experience Dynamic, which will be an integrated group of companies. Convince & Convert will fall under Experience Dynamic as its inaugural acquisition.
Both LaneTerralever and Convince & Convert will continue to work with clients independently—and they will join forces to offer a complete portfolio of CX services under the Experience Dynamic umbrella. Baer will sit on the advisory board of Experience Dynamic as he continues to lead key client relationships at Convince & Convert.
Lockard & Wechsler Direct
Lockard & Wechsler Direct (LWD), a performance marketing agency, has appointed its first executive vice president, director of advanced and connected TV, Cristina Ferruggiari. Ferruggiari joins LWD’s leadership team, tasked with further growing the agency’s advanced TV department. She’ll work across all clients and advise on general buying and planning across the agency.
Ferruggiari joins from Havas Media Group, where she rose through the ranks over the last 12 years, primarily working with clients to build omni-channel media strategies.
M Booth Health
M Booth Health has named Stacey Bernstein its new CEO. Current CEO Tim Bird becomes chairman as he transitions into a consultative role.
Prior to joining M Booth Health, Bernstein was executive vice president, global director of digital health for Weber Shandwick and general manager of Weber Shandwick’s Boston office. During her tenure, she launched Weber’s Digital Health practice and built it into a global offering.
Media by Mother
New York based Media by Mother has hired Maria Van Buskirk as head of communication strategy for the New York office. Van Buskirk joins from Essence and is the first to take on this new role at Media by Mother, which was founded in early 2021. Her remit is to own and develop communication strategy as a discipline both for the agency and its clients. She will also help shape and deliver strategic planning while driving the young agency’s strategy offering forward.
MiddleM Creative
MiddleM Creative is now the agency of record for Nfluence Partners. Founded in 2011 and rebranded to its current name in 2018, Nfluence Partners is a boutique investment bank.
The Mill
With an ambition to become the world’s largest creative visual arts company, Technicolor Creative Studios has announced the incorporation of award-winning VFX studio MPC Advertising into sister brand The Mill, to create one global studio network. The new consolidated studio will be led by Josh Mandel, previously CEO of The Mill, who will be taking on the new role of president of advertising at Technicolor Creative Studios.
The Mill’s existing studios in London, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Bangalore will combine with MPC Advertising’s studios in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Shanghai, New York and Los Angeles. As one market-leading brand, the expanded studio will focus on three core business offerings within the advertising and brand experience markets: visual effects, creative production and brand experience.
Momentum Worldwide
Experiential advertising agency Momentum Worldwide has appointed Matt Lewis as its new U.K. president. Lewis moves from his role of president at Momentum Worldwide Canada.
During his six years at Momentum Canada, Lewis won Momentum Worldwide’s first Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Nike’s “Just Do It HQ At the Church” work, and significantly grew the agency. Lewis will replace Luke D’Arcy, who will be moving into a newly created position of EMEA growth officer after being U.K. president since 2016.
MullenLowe
Gavin Colwill has joined MullenLowe Profero as head of digital design, overseeing the agency’s creative digital output, supporting clients such as Moleskine, Bahlsen, NHS and Art Fund, with a focus on driving digital innovation. He was previously digital design director at Iris Worldwide.
Cris Jones has been promoted to design director at MullenLowe London, having joined the agency in November 2018 as lead graphic designer. Jones is responsible for overseeing the agency’s design team, across brands such as Unilever, sloggi, NHS, Nutella, Bahlsen and Art Fund.
Ogilvy
Ogilvy has appointed Adam Hessel as chief creative officer of Ogilvy Health. In this role he will oversee all creative output for Ogilvy Health in North America and serve on Ogilvy Health’s executive leadership team. He will also join Ogilvy’s Worldwide Creative Council.
Hessel brings nearly three decades of experience in advertising and marketing to his new position, including work in the pharma, health and wellness arenas. He comes to Ogilvy Health from healthcare marketing agency, Harrison & Star, where he spent the last two years as chief creative officer. Prior to that he served as svp, creative director at GSW. Before that, Hessel worked at agencies including Deutsch, SpikeDDB, TBWA Chiat Day, The Kaplan Thaler Group and Publicis.
Omnicom
Omnicom Media Group, the media services division of Omnicom Group, has named Guy Marks CEO of Omnicom Media Group EMEA. In his new role, Marks, previously leader of OMD EMEA, will oversee strategy, operations and the development and adoption of transformative capabilities to support OMG agencies—including OMD, PHD, Hearts & Sciences and its Annalect data and analytics division—across EMEA.
Marks succeeds Mike Cooper, who is appointed vice chairman, Omnicom Group Europe. Cooper’s new role follows 25 years as a founding executive of OMG where his leadership roles included CEO of PHD WW and CEO of both EMEA and APAC, where he led the original formation of OMD. In his new role as Vice-Chairman Europe, he will support Omnicom’s international client strategy. In addition, he will be actively involved in Omnicom University, Omnicom’s talent development program.
In other news, Omnicom Health Group (OHG) has promoted Gena M. Pemberton to chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer. Pemberton joined the OHG leadership team in 2020.
DEI issues have been vital to business priorities at OHG, and Pemberton has been critical in leading the group to achieve tremendous success over the past 18 months. Since joining OHG, she launched the large, unique, cross-company program, Healthy Inclusion. Additionally, Pemberton has expanded OHG’s employee resource groups. Externally, Pemberton has been collaborating with business partners, creating DEI workshops.
Quirk Creative
Quirk Creative, a woman-owned business, has brought on Jenna Josepher as executive creative director. Prior to Quirk, she worked as the creative director at Function of Beauty, associate creative director at The New York Times, as well as building a robust freelance directing career. She has spearheaded creative for music videos, commercials, campaigns, brands, and editorial projects.
Stagwell
Stagwell has announced an investment into early-stage venture capital firm Hannah Grey, a first-check fund investing in customer-centric founders. Stagwell’s investment in Hannah Grey VC is part of an overall strategy to accelerate growth across the new disciplines of digital marketing services, including digital media, digital transformation, and data and software products.
Stein IAS
In a restructuring designed to further the agency’s momentum in the U.K., Europe and APAC, as well as globally, Stein IAS has elevated Craig Duxbury to the role of global chief client officer. Duxbury previously served as the agency’s president, client services.
Duxbury is a 20-year veteran of Stein IAS and has progressively held roles of greater responsibility during his tenure. He succeeds Tom Stein as chief client officer. Stein continues as chairman and adds the role of chief growth officer.
This past November, Stein IAS announced that Jeremy Cochran joined the agency after a 15-year stint at IRIS Worldwide to serve as President, Americas. Cochran is partnering with Chief Operations Officer Sue Guerrero to lead and expand Stein’s offering and presence in North America, which now comprises offices in New York and San Francisco.
ThinkArgus
ThinkArgus has promoted chief operating officer Caitlin Dodge to chief executive officer. Dodge has built her career in marketing and advertising, working with some of Massachusetts’ largest public sector and nonprofit organizations on critical branding and campaign efforts. She has played a pivotal role in growing ThinkArgus and building its reputation of developing effective campaigns across mediums and audiences.
Trade School
Trade School, an integrated content shop and full-service production studio, has appointed Sallie Baskervill as managing director. Additionally, Genna Franconi has been elevated to president.
The Atlanta-based agency is owned by independently-held Guided by Good (GBG) and touts The Home Depot, FedEx, SharkNinja and Midea as part of its growing roster of clients.
Franconi spearheaded the launch of Trade School in early 2020 as a separate content agency under GBG. After eight years at the portfolio sister agency 22squared, she recognized the need for a new model that would fill the gap between ad agencies and production houses and began building Trade School.
Baskervill brings over 16 years of experience building partnerships and driving results for some of the world’s top brands and most successful companies. She joins Trade School from AKQA, where she led the growth of the Atlanta studio for nearly nine years.
Type Directors Club
The Type Directors Club, a leading typography organization and authority on typographic excellence, has appointed designer, strategist and educator Ksenya Samarskaya to serve as its first managing director in the club’s 75-year history.
We Are Social
We Are Social has promoted Mobbie Nazir to the position of global chief strategy officer where she will be responsible for business strategy and growth among global clients, as well as building up the agency’s strategic and insights capabilities across the network.
Nazir joined We Are Social as chief strategy officer in the U.K. more than seven years ago. During her time there, she has developed the agency’s strategic product offering—played a leading role in the development and launch of the agency’s new cultural insights products and gaming offering—and was instrumental in the creation of the agency’s Diversity & Inclusion Charter for Change.
WB+TDP
WB+TDP, a full-service multimedia agency providing full creative production, has promoted Ryan Scully to vice president of creative and named Danielle Bonner Wells vice president of production. Scully will continue to oversee the daily creative operations at WB+TDP and lead the visual statement of the brand and productions, while continuing to develop artists to add to WB+TDP’s roster of over 200 artists around the globe. Scully was most recently the company’s creative director.
In her expanded role, Wells will continue to be a liaison between the artist and client, managing storyboard, print illustration, photo comp and animatic projects for WB+TDP, where she also oversees the production of full up Pre-Viz, 2D, 3D, photo and live action animatic commercials in testing for clients. Wells was most recently senior art producer.
Weber Shandwick
Weber Shandwick has appointed Michael Byrnes to general manager of its Boston office. Byrnes previously served as svp, client experience, where he worked alongside the leadership team in Boston to spur double-digit growth for the market in 2021. In his new role, Byrnes will focus on delivering solutions for clients across sectors while recruiting and retaining the industry’s top talent.