• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, August 17, 2011

Mark Pavia has joined Starcom USA as executive vice president and digital managing director. He will be based in Chicago and report to CEO Lisa Donohue. He will also serve on the Starcom Managing Board.

Pavia will be responsible for determining the agency's overall digital approach, including advanced development and application of digital strategy, management and growth of digital investment activities, and optimizing digital insights.

Pavia joins the Publicis Groupe media shop from Interpublic Group's The Martin Agency, where he had been senior vice president and director of innovation since 2008.

In that role, working with client teams and external partners, he was responsible for pursuing new innovations and technologies designed to develop and enhance new and existing marketing platforms.

Pavia joined Martin 2001 as media director and is credited with leading the re-branding effort of the shop's media arm, Ingenuity Media Group, in 2006. That year, Ingenuity was spun off to a stand-alone media agency serving both existing Martin clients and new media-only clients. Pavia served as Ingenuity's first president.

"There's no part of our intricate lives that isn't connected to digital behaviors," stated Donohue. "In a rapidly changing world where mobile technologies, tablets, social networking, data-driven interactions and customized content are hitting more screens every day, Mark brings it all together to make sure these experiences provide a strategic advantage for our clients."

Prior to Martin, Pavia served as senior managing consultant at marchFirst. He also worked at FourPoints Digital as director of media services for accounts that included Sears, Allstate and 3Com. Earlier, he was a group director at FCB, where he worked Coors, Kimberly-Clark and Cadbury Beverages assignments.