Anne Bologna Reunites With Former Toy Partners at MDC

After an 18-month stint at independent Cramer-Krasselt, Anne Bologna is headed to MDC Partners to become a managing director at the Toronto-based holding company. There, she will rejoin her longtime friends Ari Merkin and David Dabill. The trio were partners in Toy, a New York-based boutique shop that after a four-year run shuttered abruptly in 2010 . In the wake of Toy's closing, Mr. Merkin headed south to the Miami office of MDC-owned agency CP&B (where he had worked earlier in his career) while Mr. Dabill a few months ago accepted a corporate position at MDC Partners in New York. He serves as chief administrative officer. For Ms. Bologna -- who has spent the majority of her 25 years in the business at Fallon -- the new MDC role marks her third job in two years. She chose after Toy to join the New York office of C-K, and in a short time the office brought in assignments for Benihana restaurants, Comcast and Kraft. According to MDC, Ms. Bologna will oversee not one, but a number of agencies in a portfolio that includes several of the advertising, branding and research companies in the group. Shops that sit under the MDC umbrella include Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, Anomaly and 72andSunny, Mono, Allison & Partners, Kwittken & Co. and Laird & Partners. The holding company, which recently moved its New York office to a larger space atop luxury retailer Bergdorf Goodman, has been hiring at the corporate level. In addition to Ms. Bologna and Mr. Dabill, it also recently hired the first holding-company chief procurement officer, Brett Colbert. " This is a very different step for me ... it's a bigger challenge for me personally," Ms. Bologna told Ad Age . "My first instinct was not to bail on the people I committed to -- this is a great agency -- but in my gut, I knew it was right." The changes came quickly; the time elapsed from when MDC approached her to when she accepted the job was just three weeks. To replace Ms. Bologna, Chicago-based Cramer-Krasselt has hired back Jeff Johnson, the former head of the office who left to spend time writing a follow-up to his first book, "The Hourglass Solution." In what appeared to be a celebration of their reunion, Mr. Johnson dined last night at Mari Vanna restaurant around the corner from C-K Manhattan office with C-K President-CEO Peter Krivkovich, as well as creatives Dean Stefanides and Larry Hempel. "Jeff was a driving force behind C-K New York's rapid growth over the previous five years, helping build a very strong team that resulted in award-winning campaigns and major wins including all the clients we have today," said Mr. Krivkovich in a statement. "While we are sad to see Anne go and wish her well in her new endeavors, we know the agency is in the best of hands with Jeff back at the helm."

Anne Bologna Reunites With Former Toy Partners at MDC

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