Bianchi Elevated in S.F.

Named President/CEO of TBWA/C/D Office
LOS ANGELES–Carisa Bianchi has been promoted to president/chief executive officer of TBWA/Chiat/Day’s San Francisco office.
The move is part of a drive by Bob Kuperman, the agency’s president/CEO of the Americas, to better empower his North American managers. The promotion elevates Bianchi, 40, to the lead post at the $150 million office. She previously served as managing director.
In recent weeks, Kuperman has made similar moves in Los Angeles and New York, giving his new managers there president/CEO posts rather than shared managing director positions.
“If you cut her, she’d bleed Chiat/Day,” said Kuperman about Bianchi. “There aren’t many like her.”
Bianchi had left TBWA/C/D in early 1997 to start a Los Angeles office for The Leap Group, but returned later that year to help run the agency’s new San Francisco operation.
The San Francisco office is now “in development” on new work for flagship client Levi’s, Bianchi said, but she declined to elaborate. Both the client and the agency realize that “advertising can’t be the silver bullet” for Levi’s, she said, and that the company’s resurgence will take time and patience. Meantime, Levi’s is hitting its sales goals for early 1999, she added.
Also, Bianchi wants the office to “selectively” participate in new business pitches. The office is well-situated to pick up technology, wine and youth marketing clients, she said. It recently won its second account, the $20 million integrated marketing business of OnHealth Network Co. in Seattle.
Separately, Lee Clow was named chairman/chief creative officer of TBWA Worldwide.