CPB has lost yet another senior executive, Jorge Calleja, who was appointed chief creative officer for the once-storied agency just 10 months ago as part of a new leadership team announced in April.

His departure is just the latest shakeup in a tumultuous few years for the agency. Hard-charging Marianne Malina was tapped as CPB’s new global CEO from her role as president of GSD&M earlier this year to right the ship. However, in her first 100 days, the turnaround has been slow and fraught with talent losses, including six senior execs in the past five months.

CPB as of early last week listed five clients on its website but appears to be actively working on only two paying accounts: Veterans United and American Airlines, the latter of which doesn't appear to have had much work output recently, likely due to the impact COVID-19 has had on the airline industry. Recently reported losses include Hotels.com and Fruit of the Loom. CPB won VRBO in June, but a campaign that began running earlier this month is from Fortnight Collective. The agency's most recent work for Veteran’s United that Ad Age could find dates back to November of last year.

Since Ad Age late last week began inquiring about the shop’s client partnerships, its client list seems to have been removed from its website. CPB declined to comment on its client relationships.

Calleja, who couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, isn’t the only recent departure from the agency’s recent leadership team, Ad Age has learned. Strategy Director Vicente Cortina; Head of Creative Diversity Jason Pierce; Director of Account Management Jacqueline Redmond and Associate Creative Directors Jorge González and Agustín Acosta are all no longer with the agency, according to multiple people close to the situation. Three of those now-departed execs were in a photo of seven people (above) sent to Ad Age in April touting CPB’s new leadership team.

CPB declined to comment on its current staffing.

Several of 15 current and former agency employees Ad Age spoke to for this story say CPB now has around 40 employees and a single-digit number in its creative department. That’s down from nearly 1,000 employees at its peak, according to the Denver Business Journal. 

CPB declined to confirm its number of employees. But 72andSunny Co-Founder John Boiler, who is also chair at Stagwell's Constellation, the group overseeing CPB among other shops, said that the agency’s employee count is “in a state of flux.”

One ex-CPBer describes the situation as employees “leaving at a fast clip to get into lifeboats.”

Revolving management door

Many former employees claimed one reason for the decline of the agency—a one-time hot shop that revolutionized advertising and was Ad Age’s Agency of the Decade—was a failure to find the right leadership. That started after the initial departure of former principal Alex Bogusky in 2010 and the appointment of Andrew Keller, now VP-creative and experiential at Facebook.  

After Keller left the agency in 2015, the MDC-owned agency started bringing in more outside talent like then-KBS exec Lori Senecal, who was named global CEO that year and departed two years later. “As people kept leaving or were let go, I wasn’t sure we had a captain steering the ship,” said one former CPB-er. “We had a bunch of lieutenants thinking they knew what they were doing and just didn't.”

Increased outside hires eventually caused longtime senior members of the agency to depart because they felt they weren’t being recognized.

“One area I thought leadership failed was in supporting and championing their best, most loyal talent,” one former senior executive stated. “For example, I felt it was a missed opportunity when, instead of promoting two of the more respected, tenured, productive leaders out there in Boulder—Adam Chasnow [now with Fortnight Collective] and Jason Pierce—to co-CCO's, they again hired from outside. This kind of move had failed them repeatedly between 2013 when Rob Reilly, the last top-shelf chief creative officer [and now global chief creative officer at WPP] left, through 2020. And I felt these Einstein ‘definition of insanity’-level decisions sent the wrong message to the agency.”

In August of 2018, the agency surprised the industry by bringing back Bogusky after an 8-year hiatus to replace Linus Karlsson, who had joined the agency only nine months earlier. The move was heralded as a game-changer but is in hindsight viewed as a bust. People close to the agency said he worked limited hours, wouldn’t travel, and failed to bring in new accounts.  

The management carousel cranked up again in early 2020 when Bogusky left the agency once again after 18 months. This was followed by Forsman & Bodenfors CEO  Erik Sollenberg stepping down as CPB’s global CEO in March, which came on the heels of the agency’s loss of its Infiniti account to Publicis Groupe.

Accounts seem to have followed CPB’s talent rather than sticking with the agency. Tombras’ work for Hotels.com was led by its Chief Creative Officer and CPB alumni Jeff Benjamin. Tombras has also recently hired Chief Production Officer Chad Hopenwasser, and Creative Director Ryan Contillo, both former members of the Denver-based agency. Fortnight Collective was founded by ex-CPB employee Andy Nathan, and the agency hired Chasnow as its first chief creative officer in March. Last November, Domino’s hired Boulder-based WorkinProgress, an agency founded by CPB vets, as its creative agency.

“If the people who should be getting raises or promotions aren't, and eventually your best people leave or are let go, and they were the people that had relationships with the clients that you have, eventually the clients will look around and say ‘What are we staying for?'" says a former employee.

Turnaround and a startup

Several people Ad Age spoke to for this article say that the agency has remained rooted in its reputation, failing to recognize that times have changed and that it is no longer the CPB that ruled the ‘90s. “Time just passed them by,” says one agency exec. “This is an unforgiving business.”

Malina says she is eager to bring on the next chapter of the agency’s legacy, calling the situation a “turnaround and a startup.”

“A startup is a really exciting place to be when you have the legacy and the support, whether it's from John [Boiler], Chuck [Porter], or Stagwell,” Malina told Ad Age. “There's no doubt that there has been a long decline and meandering with Crispin Porter Bogusky. I would like to say I know exactly what I signed up for, but you never know until you actually get into it.”

Part of Malina’s plan to rebuild the agency is getting rid of the agency's reputation as a sweatshop culture—which was once a proud part of its legacy under Bogusky in his initial run at the shop, but which resonates the wrong way today when work-life balance is critical for employees. In fact, the agency was featured on the cover of Ad Age in 2005 depicted with its execs sweltering away as Bogusky wielded a bat over them. Malina says that culture hasn’t existed within CPB for a while.

“Part of the vision moving forward is breaking up that ‘90s mindset,” Malina says. “It’s about understanding that having access to the best talent in the world does not mean that they're a full-time employee on your roster. Being able to have access to the best talent says you might be hiring them for a project. I don't want a culture that's defined by an old AOR model and how many people are on your staff. I want to create a very vibrant moving muscle of just powerhouse talent that can take on anything whether it's an AOR or a project, whether or not half the people are on staff and half are not.”

Malina, who maintains she will continue living in Austin, Texas, says the agency is adopting a “distributed” model. That means while some people will be based in its new office in Denver, others will also be based outside of the area. The agency is aiming for a return to the office in early October, but Malina elaborated the space will be used as more of a place to collaborate than a traditional office.

CPB Co-Founder, Partner, and Chairman Chuck Porter, who was originally slated for an interview with Ad Age, opted out last minute and provided the following statement instead about his position and the future of the agency:

“When the decision was made a couple of years ago for CPB to join the Constellation—with John Boiler as the spiritual leader—I saw it as a great thing for the agency. I’ve known John really well for a really long time and his goals are the same as mine—integrity, invention, and the belief that nothing trumps talent. I also saw that as the right time for me to step back from the agency after 30-plus years.  

“My agreement with MDC at the time was modified to reflect an emeritus role and the primary thing I’ve been involved with since then was to help woo Marianne Malina to CPB. She’s terrific, she totally understands the magic that made the agency successful in the first place, and I’ve seen some of the work that’s coming out of the place on her watch. I think the future looks pretty great.”

Support from Stagwell

While many people who Ad Age spoke to for this article, including those from other agencies, suggested that CPB may have been better off sold off or merged with another agency, the shop still has support from Stagwell.

“We are committed to CPB and its next-gen evolution under Marianne and John,” says Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of Stagwell. “They are amazing leaders and will bring to clients an agency ready for these new times and yet preserving its bold, disruptive spirit.”

CPB has a tough road ahead of it as it will be competing as a small fish in a big pond rather than the other way around, even with an iconic name attached to it. Three out of the four search consultants Ad Age interviewed said they haven’t had CPB on their radar recently.

“I know it saddens all of us who grew up in the era of their greatness,” said Lindsey Slaby, founder of Sunday Dinner. “I'm just not sure what/if a revival will come without the charisma of the creative leaders who truly shaped the brand of CPB. “

Slaby says there is heavy self-evaluation needed to rebuild or create something new as it looks to compete in this new marketplace. “Goodby has been one that stands out to me who has been able to [adapt to a changing world] with a lot of hard work and most importantly connectivity to their leaders. Today, I see the agencies like Gut, We Believers, Callen, Rethink, and L&F NYC being the brands we look to for work that is bold, clever, and leaning into the tension brief that always helped make CPB work so deeply insightful and creative at the same time.”

“CPB has been under the radar recently compared to some of their sister agencies, Anomaly and 72&Sunny,” Greg Paull, co-founder and principal of R3 says. “Their challenge is to dial back the clock to their glory days and be a louder voice of change for the industry.”

The future of CPB is unknown, but one thing is certain: The industry is rooting for the agency and even former employees have a fraternity-like admiration for the shop, regardless if they joined 10 years ago or recently.

“Like many, I loved and respected that place, its talent and energy, and what it once stood for. I think the industry is better with a thriving CPB in it,” noted a former executive.

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