Emily Wilcox has been appointed CEO by TBWA\Chiat\Day New York. On April 1, Emily, who was previously the CEO of Johannes Leonardo, will join TBWA. Erin Riley, the recently appointed CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day USA, is making her first move since taking over the company’s New York, Nashville, and Los Angeles agencies.
As the CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day New York, the creative agency behind viral viral projects like Lofi Girl for Nissan and Hilton’s 10-minute TikTok, Emily will be responsible for establishing the framework for disruptive creativity that inspires talent, moves people, and propels growth for the agency and its brand partners. She will have a great deal of commitment to maintaining the solid bonds with the company’s present partners and fostering expansion, particularly in TBWA’s newly developed B2B (Plex), design (DXD), and social (Feed) specializations. She will work directly under Riley’s direction and add to TBWA\Chiat\Day US’s overall mission.
Although Emily is new to Chiat, it is obvious that she has a pirate’s heart and that disruption is in her blood, according to Erin Riley, CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day US. She possesses the taste, rigor, and unwavering desire to propel those results and believes that innovation can unleash competitive advantage for businesses. She shares my great insane luck of having three children, so we can relate to each other as ambitious workers, moms, and people.
The previous eight years were spent by Emily at Johannes Leonardo, an independent agency, where she oversaw the continued growth of the company’s clientele and enthusiastically, calmly, and precisely spearheaded attempts to bring in new business. Her first role at the company was Head of Account Management. She then rose to the position of Managing Director and CEO. She worked as SVP at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, for five years prior to it.
When discussing her appointment, Emily Wilcox revealed He was overjoyed to be able to collaborate with the amazing TBWA\Chiat\Day leadership team, as they too firmly believe that a brand’s greatest competitive advantage is its exceptional innovation. The brilliant and driven individuals at TBWA\Chiat\Day are dedicated to leveraging the power of Disruption® as the framework and process to elevate great brands via exceptional creativity. He was eager to get started and was thrilled to be a part of this venerable firm that still has a significant and good influence on our sector.
In addition to growing the account leadership department, streamlining client operations, and spearheading newly acquired client relationships and creative campaigns across Kraft Heinz, Danone, Volkswagen, MassMutual, Gap, Amazon, EA Sports, Uber, Instagram, Google, and more, Emily originally joined Johannes Leonardo in 2016 as Head of Account Management. The agency had tremendous development and momentum during this time, expanding from 30 to 200 employees. This helped the agency secure its spot on the Ad Age A-List & Creativity Awards for four years running, and it also enabled Emily to assume the newly established position of Managing Director. Following her appointment as CEO, her main priorities were developing a strong creative culture where top people could perform at their highest level and collaborate directly with client partners to use tremendous innovation to solve their most pressing problems. With strong organic growth, new business wins in spirits and fintech, 100% more talent retention, the agency’s highest talent and client satisfaction score, and the debut of the agency’s first Super Bowl work for their Volkswagen client, this focus resulted in the agency’s most successful financial year in its 16-year history.
We usually get great satisfaction when we hire new talent for our company. Troy Ruhanen, President and Global CEO of TBWA, continued, “We will be starting Q2 with a new energy across North America, and this is exactly what our agencies and clients need right now.”
The New York branch of the global collective TBWA, called TBWA\Chiat\Day NY, is also known as the Disruption® Company. They are a disruptive brand experience firm that uses the power of disruption® to help brands find creative and strategic white space. They have been named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast firm in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019, and they were awarded Adweek’s 2021 Global Agency of the Year.
