Laura Henderson Leaves Mondelez for BuzzFeed

Laura Henderson has left Mondelez International for a new marketing role at BuzzFeed. Ms. Henderson will join BuzzFeed on Jan. 3 as SVP of marketing, the digital media company confirmed. News of her joining BuzzFeed was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper previously reported that Chief Marketing Officer Frank Cooper was leaving BuzzFeed and would become CMO of BlackRock. BuzzFeed said it has no plans to hire a CMO for the time being. At BuzzFeed, Ms. Henderson will lead marketing efforts for the advertising industry. She will be based in New York and report to President Greg Coleman, according to an internal memo from Mr. Coleman shared by BuzzFeed. Ms. Henderson had been global head of content and media monetization at Mondelez, which said it is working on her replacement. "We thank Laura for her many contributions since she joined our company in 2008, particularly in driving efficiencies in media investment as she helped launch our media monetization model," Mondelez said in a statement. "We're proud of her significant accomplishments and wish her the very best in her future endeavors." Ms. Henderson joined Cadbury in 2008 as an associate brand manager and was a rising star at Mondelez. Her recent work included funding the production of a one-hour skydiving special, "Heaven Sent," which aired on Fox in July. In his memo, Mr. Coleman called Ms. Henderson "a longtime partner of ours" through Mondelez. He noted that Ms. Henderson previously worked with BuzzFeed on Mondelez's content strategy "which has touched everything from integrations of Tasty and its global franchises to the co-creation of new content areas across their brands." "As SVP of Marketing, Laura will oversee Marketing with Alex Chung, Events with Kate Driscoll and will double down on building out our Creative Strategy team with Joe Puglisi," Mr. Coleman said in the memo. "Laura's award-winning work at Mondelez has been all about innovative approaches that foster collaborative co-creation between brands and their partner agencies, and brings us the perfect mix of brand, agency and content creation perspective to BuzzFeed." Ad Age named Ms. Henderson as a media maven in September 2015. At that time, it was clear that she was intrigued by BuzzFeed. When asked "who's your favorite follow in social media," she replied: "Right now it would have to be Donald Trump. He keeps you on the edge of your seat. Normally, BuzzFeed is a huge one for me. I love BuzzFeed -- I'm obsessed with them, I follow them on every platform. And I also really like PSFK." Ms. Henderson's departure from Mondelez comes soon after the company named Kraft Heinz's Bob Rupczynski as VP-head of global media and digital.

Laura Henderson Leaves Mondelez for BuzzFeed

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