Martina Suess Cromer has moved on from her role as U.S. communications chief at WPP and has been named global chief communications officer at FCB, a revived role at the IPG agency. FCB is separating communications and growth into two distinct disciplines. Global chief marketing officer Brandon Cooke, previously responsible for FCB’s reputation practice, will continue to drive new business and growth efforts, as well as leading FCB’s international affiliates.

Suess Cromer is tasked with leading and developing FCB’s collective global communications strategy with an aim to build greater connectivity and collaboration among the agency’s worldwide network of offices and focusing on creative storytelling that transforms brand reputation. She is based in New York and joins FCB’s leadership team reporting to global chief executive officer Tyler Turnbull and global chief creative officer Susan Credle.

Communications, as a profession, is a lot more than just PR.

Martina Suess Cromer. global chief communications, FCB

“It’s really good to be back in an agency, because it’s where I came up. I understand the impact you can have in these roles, and I just want to tell great stories. FCB is an agency that really understands that work can shape culture and culture is what shapes business,” Suess Cromer told Adweek.

For the last four years Suess Cromer led U.S. corporate communications across WPP’s largest market. Prior to WPP, she was the global head of marketing and communications at Hearst-owned agency iCrossing and before that was the vp of global corporate communications at Wunderman. She also held positions at Brand Innovators, Quotidian Ventures, Powell Communications and DDA Public Relations.

Giving comms the attention and funds it deserves

FCB saw the need to split the comms department into two groups after the network’s continued growth and new business wins, including Budweiser, Intuit QuickBooks and the New York Mets.

Cooke will now be able to focus on the growth aspect of the business while Suess Cromer will concentrate on global internal and external communications.

“Both spaces are a lot hotter and come with a lot more opportunity,” Credle told Adweek.

Credle said that when she took the CCO job at Leo Burnett in Chicago, she recalled her predecessor saying that the most important person on your team will be your head of comms, because they will make your mistakes not as painful. They will make your average look good and they will make your great exceptional. “I truly believe that giving comms the attention that it deserves today with everything that’s going on in our agency is going to be another step up for us,” said Credle.

Turnbull told Adweek that he believes FCB’s reputation and product has gotten stronger every year, and he felt now was the right time to separate the two comms disciplines, which both need strong leadership.

“We always say creative is the business and the business is creative. When we met Martina, her passion for not only external comms, but internal was something that really resonated to both of us,” said Turnbull. FCB has more than 8,000 people in 100 offices who need to “speak FCB,” said Turnbull.

Advice for the younger comms generation

Communications and public relations is a wide-ranging field. On the agency side, there are many disciplines that those coming up the ranks need to know, and Suess Cromer has practiced all of them in her time at agencies and holding companies.

She said that those looking for a career in comms need to learn fast, but that climbing the ranks can take time, which can be exhausting, since the job can sometimes be around the clock. Her first suggestion is to spend a few years inside a PR agency, build a network and contact list, and have clients who will advocate for you.

“Communications, as a profession, is a lot more than just PR, so you need to understand the direction you want to go in and what you like doing … you have to pick your poison and then go where you’re going to enjoy your time and the people and continue learning,” said Suess Cromer, adding that those coming up need to be a sponge and learn from great leaders.

Suess Cromer noted that FCB has a mantra: “It’s never finished,” which resonates because the work of a comms person is never finished, because they’re always on, following the news cycles and pitching the right story at the right time.

Of course, being on all the time means that burnout is a possibility, but Suess Cromer suggests that prioritization is key—learning how to say ‘no’ or ‘not yet.’

“If you can’t get to something immediately, just say that and you’ll find a way to do it later… It’s really understanding where your impact can be maximized. You have to understand what opportunities there are and how to make them into something,” which can require creative thinking, said Suess Cromer.

Turnbull added that being intentional is key to comms people, because intention leads to a disciplined approach to the job, which leads to better focus.

“We’ve tried to be really intentional about what we want this role to be, and how we can be successful doing that,” said Turnbull.

Credle took it one point further, saying that strategy and intent lead to impact, which is ultimately what the comms role should entail.

“If you feel like what you’re doing matters and you can feel it having an impact, that’s energy. When you feel like you’re working hard, but it matters, it means something. It actually doesn’t create burnout, it creates excitement and fuel,” said Credle.

Ultimately, Credle and Turnbull want the new comms divisions to help tell the story of FCB, which turned 150 this year.

“If we’ve learned anything over the last few years it’s that great communications work is what drives a brand’s continued growth and success,” said Turnbull.

Editor’s note: In this article, Adweek deviated from its style of using Latinx due to the writer’s preference. Latine is a gender-neutral form of Latino.

In my career, I’ve worked for organizations where I was not the only Latina/e in the room. I have raised my hand to participate in projects that connect with my community because I self-identify as a translator of culture.

I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household in Chicago raised by Mexican-born parents who worked to afford an annual trip to Mexico to visit family. I recognize that the act of traveling to Mexico was a privilege for my family because so many immigrants left their homes without the option to travel back until they were able to obtain legal status. I also recognize that Chicago is home to a diverse Latine community that makes up 33% of the city’s population.

In contrast to how I self-identify, there are Latine professionals who prefer not to be labeled as part of a group and instead lead with other professional experiences or personal interests.

Or, simply, talking about cultural identity can be painful. This is especially true if a BIPOC professional grew up in a town that lacked diversity, where they were the only non-white student in school and/or their parents wanted to protect their kids by teaching them to not embrace their cultural roots.

However, if you have a Spanish name and/or look like you are Latine, regardless of your path, stories of tokenism are real on both sides.

From the perspective of a first-generation Mexican American raised in Chicago, here’s how managers can avoid tokenism and retain our nuanced talent.

The fastest-growing minority—except in advertising

Our impact is evident. Beyond national headlines and data like “Latinos account for over half of the country’s population growth,” our impact can be felt on the main stages and society has embraced us.

Seeing Diana Flores, a Mexican flag football players, featured in a Super Bowl ad made me beam with pride, especially as she spoke to her mom in Spanish. The movie A Man Named Otto beautifully depicted a Latine bilingual family as the main characters alongside Tom Hanks. Many elementary classrooms have better ethnic and diverse representation than our offices. I imagine children sitting next to each other with a tapestry of ethnic food as their lunch in the cafeteria.

However, a recent report by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (the 4A’s) was a reminder that there is room for improvement both in hiring and retaining diverse talent.

Lack of action is at the heart of tokenism

To avoid tokenism, we need to see companies and leaders commit to talent for the long term. We don’t just want to be hired to fulfill a short-term diversity goal. Regardless of how we self-identify, we want active participation from managers to get to know our individual motives, values and nuanced professional experiences in order to guide our professional development.

Let Latine employees choose if they want to share their cultural identity, or lead with another area of interest. Managers can help by co-creating a space of belonging by allowing employees to self-identify as they choose versus making assumptions that can feed into negative stereotypes.

Seek to learn from multiple lived experiences

Ensure employees aren’t called to be a lonesome representative of their entire group. Teams strike gold when they have representation from multiple Latine lived experiences and perspectives versus having one or two perspectives in the room.

Make our contributions relevant all year. Work from within the community by tapping into your employee resource groups for feedback, or make time to learn from people in the communities you are trying to reach.

Conducting ethnography sessions in a respectful way in the neighborhoods you are trying to reach is a practice that should be a part of every marketing communications institution. It teaches us to actively listen, learn, and build perspective and character by putting a voice and name to our data.

Reward excellence with excellent compensation

The pay gap among talent of color is real, regardless of how one self-identifies. Motivate diverse talent to stay with equitable monetary compensation that reflects their contributions to the business. A level up is to build reward systems by way of leadership roles and ownership opportunities.

Once we start seeing more longevity in companies by seeing more Latine talent and holding C-suite positions, we will have made a dent in avoiding tokenism. Until then, companies risk being seen as organizations that extract our cultural contributions without proper compensation and recognition.

Author moments of praise for your diverse team

Encourage and coach your diverse team to show ownership of their work by having them speak about their contributions. There is no better feeling when one is able to deliver and share our work, and get credit for it. It helps build a positive reputation within the organization that will excite others to work and collaborate with us.

Each one of us has a story, a struggle and a unique path in how we self-identify and how we choose to lead in a professional setting. There are two sides to growing up as a first-generation Latine professional that is important for managers to know. Some of us lead with our cultural identity as a superpower while others lead with other traits. Our common goal is to not be tokenized.

In an era of increasing reliance on data, automation and ultimately, AI, it is people that remain, and will remain, the driving force behind any successful business.

That said, the media and advertising industry is facing a recruitment crisis of its own. Acute talent and retention issues are commonplace in parts of our industry, underpinned by poor work/life balance, inadequate training and a perceived lack of purpose from marketing.

As advertisers, we must acknowledge that our business practices and behavior have an impact not only on the people on our teams, but also on the talent working on our behalf with our agency partners.

People and culture are now higher up on the agenda

Whilst advertisers look to allocate resources to nurture their in-house talent, too often, there is a disconnect between an advertiser’s interest in nurturing the talent of its agency partners. The responsibility to resolve talent issues is a joint one, working in partnership with our agencies.

After all, agencies serve their client’s needs and clients are king in their eyes. Consequently, the influence of advertisers to foster an agency relationship where talent can thrive should not be underestimated. It is these marketing professionals, working in our agencies, who have the potential to become the next marketing leaders in our business.

Earlier this year, the Global Media Board of the World Association of Advertisers (WFA) met in Istanbul to launch the 2023 Global Media Charter, the last of which was published in 2018. This Charter acts as a guide for media leaders to ensure that their corporate responsibility agenda is represented in the media decisions made, platforms invested in and partners selected.

For the first time, “People and Partners” was high on the agenda for this iteration, owing to the sense of urgency to address the wellbeing issues in our industry, evolving the way talent (in-house or outsourced) is recruited, trained, supported and developed.

An overhaul of client-agency processes

Behaviors that clients can adopt to have a positive impact on the people working for their business can be as simple as minor adjustments to the agency pitch process, often a period of extreme stress for agencies.

For example, at Danone, on a creative pitch we conducted recently, the brief was ready by the end of the year, but we released it to the agencies post the Christmas break to avoid agencies working on it during the holiday period. This might appear like a small thing, but for a pitch of this scale, it made the world of a difference for hundreds of people.

Of course, action from advertisers must go even deeper than this to fix some of the underlying structural issues that prevent the client-agency relationship from thriving in a way that cultivates talent.

This means overhauling the processes around clear and fair expectations, ways of working, governance and timelines. These can be as simple as streamlining approval and feedback processes to help free up time and headspace for agencies to do what they do best: being creative. Keeping lines of communication open (yet structured) and being respectful of communicating within acceptable working hours must become standard as part of the client-agency relationship. But too often, these lines are not respected.

Advertisers must also consider establishing stronger connections between their brands and agency partners through conducting regular brand immersion sessions and increased transparency on the context in which the business operates. This way, the relationship is less transactional and looks to overcome the perceived lack of purpose from marketing.

Ultimately, nurturing the agency relationship and helping develop its talent is a form of long-term investment, as those talents are key to helping advertisers build strong brands and grow their business.

BBH USA has hired two leaders from independent creative agency Fig to strengthen its Black Sheep agency brand and better blend its strategy practice with the might of Publicis’ data arm Epsilon PeopleCloud.

Samantha Deevy joins as BBH USA’s chief strategy officer, and Lindsey McNabb Hover is now the 25-year-old shop’s first CMO. Fig—the shop former TBWA chief creative officer Mark Figliulo founded and later rebranded—has grown steadily behind its proprietary StoryData tool, which was one of the industry’s first tools to use AI to analyze creative.

McNabb Hover led Fig’s new business operations and is credited for her work closing deals with clients like Campari, Tyson and Viator. Deevy, known as a media-savvy creative with a grasp on audience insights, led Fig’s strategy practice.

The two report to Agnes Fischer, president of BBH USA, who wants to keep building on the agency’s momentum with the new hires. The Publicis agency recently won AOR work for Duracell, and it has launched new campaigns for the likes of Meow Mix, Milk-Bone, J.M. Smucker and Samsung.

Hiring two leaders from the same agency turned out to be helpful for the duo, and it’s streamlined their BBH on-boarding.

“The unique thing about this leadership team is that we all know each other,” McNabb Hover said. “We’re not finding our sea legs for the first six-to-12 months of this new partnership. We are able to literally hit the ground running on day one, and we’re already finishing each other’s sentences.”

A strategy lead with media chops

In a strategy lead, Fischer sought a visionary leader—one willing to take on client work when needed.

Having held roles at Droga5, Omnicom Media Group agency PHD and another Publicis agency, Digitas, Deevy’s skillset spans media and creative practices. Her former clients include HBO’s Game of Thrones, Kraft, The New York Times, SC Johnson and Cover Girl.

The strategist’s media background resonated with Fischer. For one, BBH utilizes Publicis’ data arm Epsilon PeopleCloud to inform its creative work. In order to convince its clients to take more creative risks, Fischer thinks Deevy is capable of encouraging marketers to make those leaps, armed with data and insights that support their effectiveness.

Define the next 25 years at BBH USA

When Fischer crafted a role to drive the agency’s growth, she opted for its first chief marketing position and not a chief growth officer. BBH wants to double down on efforts to hone and amplify its agency brand ahead of its 25-year anniversary in the U.S. market coming up this fall. The role had to encompass more than new business growth.

“It’s about really refocusing on what our brand is,” Fischer said.

McNabb Hover will give the BBH brand a boost, making clear both its creative style and the characteristics it looks for in clients. It’s the right time to amplify BBH’s brand, according to the CMO. She’s observed clients reinvest in brand-building creative work, veering away from the laser-focus on performance marketing most adopted during the pandemic.

“Obviously, the last few years have been very data centric,” McNabb Hover told Adweek. “CMOs are wanting a creative partner with a little bit less risk than they’d get with engaging with the pure-play independents.”

Is an agency brand at odds with the Power of One?

BBH works within the Publicis’ Power of One model, in which sister agencies sometimes collaborate to service a single brand, like BBH client Smucker’s.

“We have the creative piece of that Power of One, in terms of the strategic brand and creative leadership. But it is surrounded by all of the other offerings of Publicis,” said McNabb Hover, noting that when Publicis agencies collaborate on the Smucker’s account, it’s challenging to tell if teammates hail from BBH or a media agency.

The BBH leaders find the Power Of One working model supports the agency’s own brand-building objectives.

“The unique thing about Publicis is that they let us be BBH,” McNabb Hover said. “They embrace their brands, they believe in the power of their brands. We are not white-labeled when we go into those [Power of One] situations.”

Independent creative thinking, but with hold co resources

When leading Fig’s strategy, Deevy missed having holding company resources at her disposal, like she had in her previous roles. For example, data and insights were harder for employees at the independent agency to access than they likely would have been at a holding company agency.

Working at media agencies made Deevy obsessed with audiences, and she regards Epsilon PeopleCloud as a differentiator for BBH.

“Already, on my second week, I’m obsessed with Epsilon … If you don’t figure it out how to actually get [the creative] out into the world in a meaningful way, at scale—that’s not going to deliver for the business,” she said.

Data is also an important strategic tool for Deevy, who expects Epsilon data will underpin the entirety of BBH’s strategic process, creative development and creative testing.

Joining BBH gives the two Fig leaders access to Epsilon PeopleCloud, but also access to its sister agencies and their resources. The model, it turns out, lines up with the duo’s professional goals in much the same way it does its clients’.

“We are truly in a unique position in the marketplace, and really differentiated in that we are fiercely creative and have this amazing culture of creativity and creative ambition––but that is underpinned by the world’s most powerful holding company,” Fischer told Adweek.

Taco Bell’s incoming chief executive Sean Tresvant has a vision for the role once he steps up next year. He sat down at Brandweek to outline his focus on leadership while recognizing that it’ll be “a very different job” to the one he currently holds within the fast food restaurant chain.

Speaking to Brittaney Kiefer, Europe creativity editor for Adweek, Tresvant also discussed some of the attention-catching marketing initiatives he has overseen in the role of global chief brand and strategy officer at Taco Bell, which he joined after almost 17 years at Nike at the end of 2021.

A history of disruption

Tresvant recounted Taco Bell’s history of disruption in the quick service restaurant sector by being “different,” something he says continues to be true 61 years after opening its first restaurant. It has now grown to more than 7,000 locations across the U.S. and to over 1,000 internationally as Tresvant has taken its “brand magic” around the world.

“It always starts with the consumer, and we are going to sell to everybody—but we want to speak to someone, and that someone is what we call the cultural rebel,” he outlined. “So for us, it’s really being sharp on our voice, both in the U.S. and internationally. But it really starts with the consumer and helping them understand what the brand is all about.”

To achieve this aim wherever the brand operates comes down to being consistent in its approach but honing the message for local markets, he continued. Taco Bell has always used humor in its ads and partnerships with celebrities from MC Hammer and Shaquille O’Neal in the ’90s through to more recent collabs with the likes of Doja Cat, LeBron James and Devante Adams.

“What we want to do is not the status quo. Not to do what the other brands are doing, but how do we really stay authentic to our consumers and be different than what other people aren’t doing?” Tresvant added.

That is a brand ethos that crosses into Taco Bell’s use of social media, working with major stars as well as micro influencers to share its marketing messages and deals. A campaign with TikTok micro influencers from June about zero delivery charges led to the brand’s highest engagement yet on the platform, he revealed, highlighting the power of collaborating with the right creators, no matter what their audience reach may be.

@iamkendraluster 💰 THIS WEEKEND @tacobell 🌮 is offering a $0 DELIVERY FEE for anyone who has the FREE Taco Bell mobile app!!! Enjoy!!! You’re welcome lol!!! 😁 ➡️ LINK IN BIO!!! ⬅️ #TacoBell #0DeliveryFee 🤑 #ThisWeekendONLY #TacoBellPartner #greenscreen #fyp #KendraLuster ♬ original sound – Kendra Luster

He also highlighted how successful those messages can be by not trying to control those creators, citing Doja Cat’s criticism on Twitter of the brand for dropping Mexican Pizza from its menu, which blew up and led to it being brought back.

“That’s why I think that campaign was so successful, because we didn’t put her in a box. We let Doja be Doja, which is very authentic. And then obviously, consumers responded and reacted to authentic content versus us writing lines for Doja about what to say.”

In turn, the brand aims to respond and have conversations with its fans through social media, which led to the “Brought Back” campaign, allowing fans to suggest other old menu items they wanted to return.

Stepping up to CEO

Speaking about preparing to take on the role of CEO on Jan. 1, following the planned retirement of Mark King at the end of this year, Tresvant spoke about his view on leadership and how he aims to take the Yum! Brands-owned restaurant chain forward.

“Leadership and being able to lead people, coach people, mentor people, separates companies from good to great, from great to extraordinary. And so, my platform, and Taco Bell, even when I came in as chief brand officer, the idea is to let’s be able to create great leadership within a certain company because I do think it changes the trajectory of companies,” he explained.

He also spoke about the people within the brand and leading it holistically, while also aiming to grow Taco Bell internationally, something he had already begun to focus on in his current position. Also on his agenda is enhancing the brand’s relationship with franchisees.

Wieden+Kennedy is a place creatives want to work. The global independent agency has landed some of the top talent in the world, thanks to decades of groundbreaking work for brands including Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Samsung and Budweiser. The agency is also known for its culture of creativity, born from its late founders Dan Wieden and David Kennedy, and that wave of creative leadership continues with recent new hires and promotions.

After a few years of changes, including the loss of its founders and the departure of longtime creative lead Colleen DeCourcy—as well as the loss of creative clients including Duracell and TurboTax—Wieden+Kennedy has made some strategic moves to strengthen leadership at its headquarters in Portland and its New York office.

In Portland, Wieden+Kennedy landed a boomerang in Jason White, who will become president. He will lead the office alongside co-chief creative officers Azsa West and Felipe Ribeiro, who comes north to Portland from the W+K São Paulo office.

In New York, global chief creative officer Karl Lieberman has appointed new CCO leadership in creative partners Brandon Henderson and Marques Gartrell, both rising from executive creative director to lead the office with New York president Jiah Choi.

The changes have been made to form a three-person dynamic at each office, which is roughly how Lieberman and now global CEO Neal Arthur ran the New York office when they were ecd and managing director, respectively. They were looking for people who had the right chemistry, drive and resilience to do the jobs.

“We have to make sure that we’ve got people leading these offices that get the place and continue to protect what’s great about it and change what’s not, and continue to evolve upon what Wieden+Kennedy is and how we can still be a great creative company in a changing world,” Lieberman told Adweek.

The new talent will continue to lead the wide client base of Wieden+Kennedy, including new wins like Epic Games and Google Consumer Apps in New York and Eli Lilly, MLB and Allstate in Portland.

A boomerang with brand experience

White spent over eight years with Wieden+Kennedy as an account manager and director for Nike, as well as being the managing director at the Shanghai office. He then went brand side, working for Apple, Beats by Dre, cannabis company Curaleaf, MTV Entertainment and most recently Fanatics, where he was CMO for Fanatics Betting and Gaming.

That client-side experience made him an attractive re-hire for the agency, where he can use his brand skills to both bring in new business and better manage the agency’s many clients based in the Portland office.

“Part of me never left Wieden. It’s been a part of my narrative for longer than I even knew. I wanted to make Nike ads when I was 12 years old. And what I didn’t know is that meant I wanted to be at Wieden+Kennedy,” White told Adweek.

White spent the last near decade away from the agency and got to see the rapid change in how clients sell their businesses and technology, but he kept coming back to the power of creativity and the need for brands to understand who they are and push their messaging through all the channels and funnels available to them.

“No one does it better than Wieden, and no one has a better ability to help a brand understand who they are and to create a motion around that meaning and then present it to the customer with so much creativity,” said White.

White will start his position in October. Until then, ecd Susan Hoffman, one of the first employees at Wieden+Kennedy, will help with the transitions in Portland and New York.

“We’re not just trying to bring in advertising talent, we’re trying to find the type of people who define what the future of this business is. The soulfulness Jason has from growing up here, combined with the experience he has growing world class brands, is what excites me most. Hiring Jason signals that we’re trying to define how modern brands are built and show up in the world,” Arthur told Adweek.

A shift in the client landscape

While Wieden+Kennedy has lost a few clients, including Duracell and Fisher Price, it has also gained many, including Allstate, Ancestry and Calzedonia Group. The loss of TurboTax resulted in several layoffs in Portland, though the Duracell loss did not result in any staffing changes.

Lieberman said that, while there have been losses, new business gains have helped make up for those, and there are other yet-to-be-announced wins on the way this year.

In addition, since taking top global leadership posts in 2020, Arthur and Lieberman have diversified W+K’s global creative leadership group from 23% non-white to 41% non-white, and female representation has tripled within the group.

White said that having diversity in the client roster is a good thing for Wieden+Kennedy.

“It’s transferable knowledge that you can take from one industry to the other … a problem that you solve on Visa may reveal something that you solve on Nike, or may reveal something that you’ve solved on some other business or some other category,” said White.

He sees the chance to do more with the current client roster, building and expanding relationships, and from there he sees the agency finding new clients that want to drive the emotions of their customer and push the limits of creativity.

Solidified creative leadership

White will have help in West and Ribeiro. West is another recent boomerang, returning to W+K from Anomaly Berlin. She will be joined by Ribeiro, who recently headed up the Brazilian office, as a co-CCO team.

White worked briefly with West in Shanghai, but he said the three have talked about their shared vision for the Portland office and are aligned on bringing success to the main office.

In New York, Choi will be joined by creative partners Henderson and Gartrell, who have been in charge of the McDonald’s account and will now level up to all the clients in the New York office while continuing to work on McDonald’s.

Henderson has been with Wieden since 2010 and has worked with clients ranging from ESPN to Spotify and Dos Equis, and Lieberman sees him as a leader who is good for morale.

“He understands what creatives need, and what kind environment they need to do great work,” said Lieberman, adding that Henderson and Gartrell have great chemistry to help lead the New York office with Choi.

LG Ad Solutions has a new chief executive.

Top line

The company tapped Michael Hudes as its new president and CEO, with the exec also joining the board of directors.

Hudes was a co-founder and chief commercial officer at Zenapse, and has held roles at Lyft, Clear Channel, YuMe/RhythmOne and Organic.

Between the lines

The new CEO is taking over for Adam Sexton, who was acting CEO and COO following former CEO Raghu Kodige’s ousting in December.

“Michael’s rich experience and proven track record in the digital and CTV advertising sphere makes him an invaluable addition to the LG Ad Solutions leadership team,” Matthew Durgin, LG Ad Solutions board chairman and vp at LG Electronics USA, said in a statement. “We’ve witnessed the strides the company has been making under the existing executive leadership team, and we expect to accelerate this momentum even further with Michael at the helm.”

The company said that Hudes’ appointment comes at a “crucial juncture” as it works to solidify its standing in the connected TV landscape.

“I am both thrilled and honored to join LG Ad Solutions during such a transformative period for our industry,” Hudes said in a statement. “The opportunities ahead for LG Ad Solutions are vast, and I am deeply committed to steering the company into its next chapter of scale, innovation and industry leadership.”

Bottom line

The appointment comes following several tumultuous months at LG Ad Solutions, formerly Alphonso.

Kodige, who also co-founded Alphonso before LG acquired the company in 2021, abruptly departed LG Ads at the end of 2022 alongside fellow co-founder and executive chairman Ashish Chordia. Kodige was promoted to CEO in July of 2021 after serving as chief product officer since 2013.

In September, LG Ads added three executives and named Tony Marlow global CMO.