Hill Hires 2 EVPs

Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos has added a pair of executive vice presidents, naming Alice Connery evp/managing director for direct marketing in its Boston headquarters and hiring Steve Diamond evp/creative director for relationship marketing in New York.

Connery takes over many of the oversight chores that had been handled by Laurel Rossi, who was recently elevated to chief integration officer.

Connery will be responsible for relationship marketing on such key accounts as FleetBoston Financial, Fidelity Investments, Terra Lycos and Humana. Most recently, Connery, 44, was president of ThompsonConnect, a J. Walter Thompson direct marketing unit in New York. While there, she worked on the Ford and Merrill Lynch accounts.

Prior to ThompsonConnect, Connery spend five years at Rapp Collins, New York, as senior vice president, group account director.

Diamond, 42, was previously an executive creative director at OgilvyOne in Chicago, where he was responsible for direct marketing and advertising for clients such as Ameritrade, Sears and Arthur Anderson. At Hill, Holliday, he will oversee direct marketing creative for the New York office’s clients, which include Verizon Wireless, Minolta and Dun & Bradstreet.

“It’s a totally different [agency] model here,” Diamond said. “When a client comes with a problem, we solve that problem in whatever medium and with whatever technique that makes sense.”

“I loved his Ameritrade stuff,” said Hill, Holliday’s New York president Dave Wecal. “That’s some of the best stuff running.”