GroupM North America CEO Brian Lesser to Depart for AT&T Role
04 August 2017 - 11:45PM
Dow Jones News
By Alexandra Bruell
GroupM North America Chief Executive Brian Lesser is leaving the
WPP-owned media agency group to join AT&T Inc.
Kelly Clark, GroupM's global CEO, will take on the North America
duties while the company searches for a successor, the company
said.
The media agency group supported AT&T as a client for many
years, but last year lost the business to rival Omnicom.
GroupM is the WPP unit that houses media agencies Mindshare,
MEC, MediaCom, Maxus and Essence. WPP recently announced plans to
combine MEC and Maxus.
Mr. Lesser was elevated to the GroupM role two years ago from
his role as CEO of digital media group Xaxis.
AT&T is tapping the digital media pioneer as marketers seek
more control over a business which has grown in complexity, with
the advent of new technologies and digital mediums.
Mr. Lesser is tasked with building an advertising and analytics
business using the company's customer data and content assets.
He'll be CEO of the business and report to AT&T Chairman and
CEO Randall Stephenson, the company said.
"Brian is a terrific executive and one of the best there is in
harnessing technology and data to create targeted advertising,"
said Mr. Stephenson. "Once we complete our acquisition of Time
Warner Inc., we believe there is an opportunity to build an
automated advertising platform that can do for premium video and TV
advertising what the search and social media companies have done
for digital advertising."
"Brian has been a key contributor to 24/7, Xaxis and most
recently GroupM, and we are sorry to see him go, but wish him every
success in his new role," said a GroupM spokesman.
Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 04, 2017 09:30 ET (13:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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