Wieden+Kennedy hires Anomaly L.A. CEO to co-lead New York office

Wieden+Kennedy has poached Anomaly partner and Los Angeles office CEO Jiah Choi to co-lead its nearly 500-person New York office. Choi, who will get the president title, will run the office with Scott Dungate. He takes on the New York chief creative officer title after most recently serving as the top creative at W+K Tokyo. The duo, who will start in November, replace Neal Arthur and Karl Lieberman, who had been running the New York office while also overseeing W+K’s entire eight-office global agency since being promoted in late 2020. Arthur is now W+K global CEO while Lieberman is global chief creative officer. Lieberman in an interview said he and Arthur wanted to “keep our hands on the wheel in New York for a year” after getting the global promotions. Then it took another year to find the right candidates to lead New York, which in recent years has emerged as a W+K powerhouse on par with its Portland flagship. Choi has led Anomaly L.A. since the office was opened in 2016 and has been credited with growing it into the agency’s second-largest office, now at about 125 people, handling clients such as Expedia, Jimmy John’s, General Mills, Hulu and MasterClass. Lieberman got to know Choi when she was a client working at Coca-Cola. “She was exactly the kind of client we are always looking for—she was honest, she was inspiring, she wanted to work together to solve problems,” he said. “To see her go to Anomaly and absolutely kill it there was really inspiring.” Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here Choi said one of the reasons she took the job was to get back to New York, where she was briefly stationed while at Coke, before taking the Anomaly L.A. job. Also, “the Anomaly office in L.A. is having a great momentum,” she said, adding “it felt like the right time to go,” so that they could bring in a new leader “who has a new perspective.” She also cited the chance to again work with Arthur and Lieberman—"It was pretty much impossible to say no to.” Anomaly L.A. will now be run by Khara Wagner, who has taken the title of president and managing partner after previously working in Anomaly’s New York office as head of account management. Anomaly, in a statement about Choi’s exit posted on LinkedIn, said, “We’re so sad to see her go and send her off on her next chapter with nothing but the utmost appreciation for everything she's achieved.” Choi joins W+K New York shortly after it lost a high-profile client in Bud Light—which Anomaly won in late August. (Choi said she did not work on that pitch for Anomaly.) Despite that loss, Wieden expects to finish the year with year-over-year revenue growth in New York, thanks to growing business from existing clients such as McDonald’s, Ford and Delta Airlines, according to Lieberman. And even though W+K lost Bud Light, it still expects its AB InBev revenue to be up, due to ongoing work with Budweiser global, Michelob Ultra and corporate branding. Dungate will move to New York after leading creative in Tokyo since late 2019, where he worked on accounts including Nike, Ikea, AB InBev, Netflix, Google and HP Omen. His 16-year stint at W+K also includes stops in London and Shanghai. The New York job will be the first U.S. post for the Australian native. “We definitely were hoping to get someone who had Wieden DNA,” Lieberman said. Plus, he wanted someone who had previously led a W+K office, because “we know they will have the ability to do it and…we’ll know whether or not they like doing it.” While Dungate said “I am pretty comfy here in Tokyo,” he is excited about the New York opportunity because the office is “having a bit of a moment.” He cited the McDonald’s work—which has included the headline-grabbing “Famous Orders” campaign. “You feel like there is a partnership happening there where the client and agency are understanding how they can act in culture,” Dungate said One remit for Choi and Dungate will be to navigate how the office operates as work life begins to normalize after the first two years of the pandemic, said Lieberman. At present, Wieden does not have any mandates on how often people must come into the office. “Right now we are being as flexible as possible because that seems like the most important thing for the business,” Lieberman said. Going forward, he favors what he described as the “university library model,” meaning gathering in the office for periods when it is useful. While work-from-home might be good for productivity, “I don't think it’s great for morale,” he said. “A strong culture does require some human connection,” he said. But “I don’t think it’s five days a week by any means.” As Dungate exits Tokyo, Wieden will create a new leadership structure in the region, with four people overseeing Tokyo and Shanghai: Yosuke Suzuki (president, W+K Tokyo); Ian Toombs & Vivian Yong (chief creative officers at W+K Shanghai); and Bryan Tilson (president of W+K Shanghai based in Singapore).

Wieden+Kennedy hires Anomaly L.A. CEO to co-lead New York office

Featured Stories