NEW YORK Arnold has hired former Wolf Group chief operating officer Ned Russell to oversee its McDonald’s New York Cooperative business as executive vice president, the agency said.
Based in New York, Russell, 42, will oversee a 12-person team that works on the account, which encompasses the fast food chain’s Tri-State restaurants. He replaces Jon Tracosas, who left the Havas-owned shop last November.
He will also assist the senior management team, including New York president Mary Baglivo, chief marketing officer Kristen Volk and executive creative director John Staffen, on new business efforts. Russell and Staffen have worked together in the past at Omnicom Group’s DDB, having both been a part of the team that started project-based venture, DDB Downtown, in 1999.
Russell, who joined last Thursday, said he is looking forward to helping “build a company that follows in principal what Arnold has created in Boston, but that’s made for New York. If we do that, I think that rather quickly we can establish and build a pretty solid place there.”
During his three-year tenure at Wolf Group, Russell helped snag new accounts, like Mott’s, CIT and Equal. He exited the New York shop in June over strategic differences.
Before that, he spent three and a half year years at DDB in New York, where he worked on Hershey’s and Johnson & Johnson. He started his career on the account side at Lintas, where he served for 13 years on the account side in New York and in Asia.
Arnold Hires Former Wolf COO for McD's
