The NY Times reports today that Karen C. Francis, with Harvard MBA and 20 years of client-side service, will be named Publicis & Hal Riney’s chief executive.
from the article: The migration of brand marketers to agency executive suites, once rare, is becoming less so as agencies seek to remake their business models to meet the challenges from clients anxious to find nontraditional approaches for reaching consumers.
“I’ve always looked at marketing with the consumer at the center,” Ms. Francis said in a telephone interview on Friday, “how all the experiences a consumer has with a company affects the consumer’s decision to spend his or her hard-earned money.
Well, Hal Riney replaced by a suit from Harvard means the end of an era. And the end of Hal Riney as we knew it. Of course, he already left didn’t he? All the best. Have another whiskey, Hal.