McKinney CEO Joe Maglio Will Also Take on the Chief Exec Role at Barbarian

Cheil North America is relatively small compared to its holding company counterparts. It boasts 800 employees across seven agencies, but it’s taking the first step to better align its shops in the pursuit of organic growth with the introduction of Joe Maglio’s dual role.

Maglio, who was already the CEO of McKinney, will also hold the CEO position at Barbarian. He takes over for Steven Moy, who ADWEEK revealed is taking the CEO reins at indie shop L&C.

Under Maglio, McKinney has tripled in size, added a health practice, acquired influencer agency August United and landed signature clients Popeyes and Little Caesars. Like many digital agencies in the current industry landscape, Barbarian hit a “rough patch” as Maglio described it, but is now back in a period of growth with clients like American Express, which tapped the shop as its social AOR. Maglio also takes on a president role at Cheil North America, while McKinney managing director Bill Mattis will lead growth for Cheil North America.

“The desire is to bring the Barbarian brand back to prominence back to where it had been,” Maglio said. “Since they were founded, their whole thing was to disrupt the digital landscape. Every time some new technology comes out, we’re going to be at the forefront of it.”

ADWEEK asked Maglio for his perspective on what readers can learn from his career, his new agency and the industry.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Career advice

ADWEEK: You started as an account exec, a common path to leadership at an agency. What advice do you have for current account execs to reach leadership?

Joe Maglio: My value as an account person is to really balance the true needs of the client with the needs of the agency and make those mutually beneficial. That’s really what I I tried to do for the bulk of my career, and when you do that well over time, you start to get recognized as somebody who is able to build, maintain and retain client relationships, while also helping the agency grow. That is a real skill that account people should be cultivating over their careers.

Not many CEOs hold dual roles like you now do. Brad Simms is chief exec at Gale and CPB, while the recently retired Kristen Cavallo was chief exec for MullenLowe and The Martin Agency. What’s the key to leading two agencies?

Having trusted leadership is so key. Recognizing that I’m going to have professional FOMO. I’m just going to have to manage myself. There will be conversations that I really want to be part of and help, but that’s the whole reason I made sure I had great people in leadership. I have to emotionally pull myself out of certain things and really recast my contributions. You can just add more and more time to your day by taking on more responsibility, but then you’re going to mess it all up.

Advice on holding dual roles from Kristen Cavallo

“Make sure you understand how you are motivated. Do you need time alone? Time with others? Praise? Get clear on that because the agencies will succeed if you succeed. Give yourself the best odds.”

Building an agency

So many indie agencies reside in cities outside the recognized talent hubs for this industry, and McKinney has been headquartered in Durham, N.C. for 50 years. What’s key to attracting talent to N.C. that other agencies can learn from?

We try our best to have a unified culture. We operate under a single P&L, so you can be in any of those locations [McKinney is in Durham, New York, L.A., Phoenix and Dallas] and still have the same career and still have a very similar employee experience. We focus on employee experience pretty significantly, and when you are in markets outside of New York and L.A., you need to double down on that a bit. [McKinney’s retention rate is 92%].

Views on the industry

What’s something in the industry that you’ve done a complete 180 on?

The power of influencers. And that might sound odd because we acquired an influencer agency … My viewpoint that changed was I thought it was going to be a slower burn, in terms of how important influencers became. There’s articles all the time about how influencers are becoming a bigger part of the marketing mix. Agencies are now hiring creators and we’re doing the same now. I knew influencers would be a positive thing for us to have and it was creating upward momentum, but it’s becoming such a bigger part of what we do.