Johannes Leonardo has named Steve Zaroff its new chief strategy officer, reporting directly to Jan Jacobs and Leo Premutico, co-founders and creative chairmen of the independent agency. Zaroff succeeds Mark Aronson, who left the agency in September.
The strategy team at Johannes Leonardo is composed of about 20 people and is a blend of brand planners, communication strategists, media thinkers and digital strategists. Zaroff leads the team and will focus on refining and scaling the agency’s strategy department as it continues to grow and develop new capabilities.
Wealth of strategy experience
Zaroff fervently believes new ideas happen when different thinkers and perspectives collide around a problem. His vision for the agency will be to create the conditions for more of these healthy collisions to organically occur.
"An agency of this size that has that diversity of thinking within the strategy group is exciting,” said Zaroff of JL, which currently has 180 employees. “You often find that you need a big agency to bring that together, so I’m excited to find that here and be able to build not just the team, but find new ways to bring those people and types of thinking together.”
Subscribe to Ad Age now for the latest industry news and analysis.