• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 28, 2009

With the ink barely dry on its Oct. 14th acquisition of Razorfish from Microsoft, Publicis has already begun to integrate facets of it with other components of its digital advertising services organization. This morning, Digitas CEO Laura Lang announced that Colin Kinsella, the chief innovation officer at Razorfish, has been named CEO of Digitas North America -- a position that has been vacant since Lang was elevated to her current global role, when former Digitas chief David Kenny took the helm of the Publicis VivaKi unit, as well as de facto chief digital strategy officer.

The move is telling, because Publicis has maintained that Razorfish would continue to operate as a separate, freestanding operating unit following its acquisition -- but as Lang noted in a memo distributed to Digitas employees this morning, Kinsella "comes to the role with an extensive background of more than 20 years of experience in traditional and digital advertising."

Before becoming chief innovation officer, he was president of Razorfish's West region, and previously, "led all of Razorfish's discipline areas, including analytics, strategy, delivery, media and technology to drive the development of engaging customer experiences for clients such as Visa, Singapore Airlines, Genentech, Sony, Williams-Sonoma and Westfield."

Lang said Digitas North America's senior management team -- including Glenn Engler, Joanne Zaiac, and Tony Weisman -- will report directly to Kinsella, and that Weisman, who has been president of Digitas' Chicago region, has been given the added responsibility of global client leader.

Weisman, who already was the executive lead for Digitas' global Procter & Gamble business, will work with Lang and Stephen Beringer to oversee Digitas' global client management.