• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, July 1, 2013

With its growing roster of global accounts, Interpublic Group media agency Initiative has created the new post of global Chief Strategy Officer and appointed agency veteran Sarah Ivey to fill it. She will report to Jim Elms, Initiative’s global CEO.

As lead strategist at the agency, Ivey will oversee the development of planning programs and tools and help clients with their strategic planning efforts.

Ivey is credited with playing an integral part in reeling in a string of new business assignments for the firm, a role that will continue in her new post. Among the accounts she helped to land was last year’s win of the communications planning assignment for Unilever’s Homecare division. The shop’s other multiple market accounts include Hyundai-Kia and Amazon. Initiative won global duties on Amazon’s estimated $500 million media planning and buying assignment -- with the exception of U.S. digital media -- in May.

CEO Elms credited Ivey with helping “more clients than anyone in our organization.”

Ivey joined Initiative in 2000 as vice president, strategic planning. She later became general manager of Initiative Canada; in 2007, Ivey was promoted to director of communications planning worldwide. With expertise in segmentation and strategy, she co-developed Initiative’s proprietary planning process, Matrix and its research program, The Connections Panel.

Prior to joining Initiative, Ivey was an account manager at Canada’s HYPN Media.