Left: Jiah Choi, CEO of BBDO New York and Energy BBDO Right: Nancy Reyes, CEO of BBDO Americas
BBDO is hiring its first CEO to lead both its New York and Chicago offices. Jiah Choi, previously the president of Wieden+Kennedy New York, will be taking on the role effective Sept. 9.
BBDO New York has 300 employees and Energy BBDO in Chicago now has about 150 employees.
Before her role at Wieden, which she held for two years, Choi helped start Anomaly’s Los Angeles office, where she eventually became CEO and established relationships with clients such as Uber Eats, Facebook, Allbirds, Diet Coke and the Los Angeles Rams.
The move marks a significant shift for the Omnicom agency network and is “intentional” to make BBDO more collaborative and “team-focused” within the two offices, said BBDO’s Americas CEO Nancy Reyes.
“I’m really into this notion of moving away from a network and more into a community,” Reyes said. “Not to deprive any office or any country of their individual brand, but rather, because, in today’s world, it is more modern to work together as teams and as a community than it is to work separately. We just do much better when we’re together, and we’ll move faster when we’re together.”
Keeping the offices siloed is a “little bit archaic,” added Choi, who said she will look to split her time equally between the two offices. “You share offices when it’s global, but you should be able to share offices just based on the needs of the client. … It makes it much more valuable for clients that we have this flexibility to bring in people and out regardless of what city the lead agency is in."
Reyes said there have been multiple instances in which BBDO’s New York and Chicago offices have pitched together, though she declined to name them. One major account win for the network is Kenvue, which in May added BBDO, along with Interpublic Group of Cos.’ FCB, to its creative agency roster.
Choi joins following significant executive changes over the past year at BBDO. Early this year, Chris Beresford-Hill took on the role of BBDO’s Americas chief creative officer shortly after Reyes assumed her Americas CEO role. This was a reunion for the pair, who worked together at TBWA before Beresford-Hill’s stint at Ogilvy.
Longtime BBDO execs Jeff Adkins and Kirsten Flanik, who led Energy BBDO and BBDO New York, respectively, have also departed.
BBDO New York also recently hired a new chief strategy officer, Emily Portnoy, from McCann New York.
“It is a time of change, of growth and figuring out what the future state of BBDO is,” Reyes said. “When I joined, I felt like it was a tremendous opportunity to bring this incredible agency with this incredible reputation into the next five, 10, 15 years and the only way to really do that is to surround yourself with people who who represent what has been great and wonderful about BBDO, with some people who bring in a fresh new perspective, people who love the industry, who drive change, and who believe in innovation.”
Reyes said that despite Choi’s oversight of both agencies, there are no plans for internal mergers within the network. She added that there have been no talks about merging the BBDO network with other prominent networks within Omnicom such as DDB and TBWA.
Omnicom, however, did merge its TBWA, DBB, and BBDO operations in Canada in July, which Reyes said strategically made sense for that market. Omnicom also made moves last year to consolidate its office space between BBDO and DDB in Chicago. Also last year, TBWA\Chiat\Day New York moved its office to one that is in the same building with other Omnicom agencies.
Other BBDO offices in the U.S. include Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas. While Reyes will continue to oversee all of the U.S. she also said it made sense to have one leader oversee the two offices given their shared clients and capabilities.
One of the largest clients both offices share is Mars Wrigley. Some of Energy BBDO’s key clients include Bayer, Brown-Forman, and The General Insurance. Some key New York clients are FedEx, Enterprise Holdings, and SAP.
Reyes said she aims to disprove the notion that BBDO is simply a “legacy” shop by applying more “innovation and strategic thinking.” And, she said, the industry too often puts a negative spin on legacy agencies.
“We’re really good in this industry at flipping the narrative of something where legacy connotes traditional and old for some people. It also connotes to me experience, driving excellence, credibility, and history,” Reyes said. “One of the most interesting things I found out when I was doing my research about BBDO when I got here is [that] the average tenure of the relationship that we have with our clients is 13 years. We have been through a lot with these clients.”
Wieden+Kennedy hasn’t immediately identified a new replacement for Choi.
“We’re grateful for all the energy Jiah has brought to this place, and we wish her all the best as she takes on this new role,” a Wieden spokeswoman said in a statement.
