Tombras hires Wieden+Kennedy vet as first chief growth officer

Tombras has hired a 17-year Wieden+Kennedy vet as its first chief growth officer. Maggie Jennings takes on the role after previously serving as global director of new business at W+K Portland, where she was also a stakeholder. In her previous role, Jennings was tasked with establishing the W+K’s business development arm. During her tenure leading the new business team, the agency won business with large brands such as Airbnb, Visa, Coca-Cola, Dodge Chrysler, Ford, TurboTax, Uber, Samsung, Amazon, Lilly, and Verizon. Enter the 2022 Small Agency Awards at AdAge.com/SAA2022 Jennings said the pandemic played a role in her decision as well as the fact that Tombras is also an independent full-service agency. “Being at Wieden for 17 years and bringing in new business for 12, I got to work with the entire globe—then the pandemic happened and in trying to reassess what I wanted to do next and what my next adventure was, being closer to family was really important,” Jennings said. “I talked to a lot of brands, I talked to a lot of the holding companies, consultants, and small agencies and I have to be honest, the minute I met Dooley and the team it just felt right. It [Tombras] had so many qualities that I loved about Wieden and I just felt that I could make an impact in a really big way by building on the momentum that they already have.” She will be based out of Tombras’ Atlanta office which launched in 2019 and has over 40 employees. This is the “biggest hire in the history of the agency,” said Dooley Tombras, president of the Knoxville, Tennessee-based agency as he outlined where he sees the next phase of the agency’s growth. “We've achieved enough scale now,” Tombras said. “We're knocking on the door of having 500 employees, we're getting close to $100 million in revenue so at this point, we don't need to chase scale for scale's sake. At this point the growth becomes more strategic and we start to build on the fact that we're working with bigger brands, more prestigious brands, doing higher-level work, and we're getting a lot more selective. Maggie's going to help us grow in the right way." He added: "She has global experience and we're a national agency right now, but I think this begins to open the door for global expansion down the road for us.” Earlier this year Tombras was named creative and media agency of record for Steak-umm. Last year the agency added 12 new clients, including Subway, Edible, Hotels.com, Big Lots, Pernod Ricard’s American Whiskey portfolio and Mozilla Firefox. Jennings said the key to new business pitches is making sure there is alignment between the agency and clients. “It’s really about finding the people [within the agency] who are passionate about a brand,” Jennings said. “It's hard these days connecting with audiences. You're going to be in the weeds and you're going to want to have debates about what's going to work and test new things. Those aren't easy conversations all the time, because not everyone's going to agree, but if you all agree, the work's not going to be very good most of the time.” Agencies should also look at growing internally if they want to succeed in winning accounts, according to Jennings. “The interesting thing I've learned over the years is new business isn't necessarily always about new business,” Jennings added. "It's about evolving the agency one creative opportunity at a time. That means trying new things and taking our data and analytics, and asking is it at the forefront, or taking our SEO team and asking is that at the forefront.” Enter the 2022 Small Agency Awards at AdAge.com/SAA2022 This new hire further solidifies Tombras’ executive team which has been growing over the past few years, Chad Hopenwasser joined as the agency’s first chief production officer in September. In 2020, Denice Heyward was named the agency’s first senior VP, director of business affairs and in 2019, Jeff Benjamin was named as Tombras’ first chief creative officer.

Tombras hires Wieden+Kennedy vet as first chief growth officer

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