Jay Benjamin was named chief creative officer of Saatchi & Saatchi New York. Benjamin was most recently chief creative officer at Leo Burnett New York and previously co-executive creative director of Leo Burnett Sydney. This is a homecoming of sorts for the New York-born Benjamin as he previously spent several years at both Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney and Auckland. In 2010, Leo Burnett launched a New York office built around Benjamin as the agency founder, working on clients like Samsung, Chobani, The Village Voice, United Nations and Filip. The agency's work for The Village Voice, "New York Writes Itself," a crowdsourced off-Broadway play, won the inaugural Gold Lion for Branded Content at Cannes in 2012.

R2C Group promoted Bryan Noguchi to senior vice president, media director. For the last year, he served as director of integrated planning strategy. In this new role, Noguchi will be based in the agency's Portland office and report to Michelle Cardinal, CEO of R2C Group. Noguchi will manage a team of 55, providing leadership for the department and continuing to grow the planning and buying teams. He will oversee media buying, planning and strategy across channels for all R2C Group clients and will also be responsible for building partnerships in the media community. Noguchi has nearly 20 years of media experience at agencies such as McCann Erickson, Mediacom, T3 and DWA Media, working on brands like Metro PCS, Conoco Philips, Microsoft, Nokia, Facebook and Intel.

TBWA\Chiat\Day promoted Luis DeAnda to president of the Los Angeles office, succeeding Carisa Bianchi, who is leaving the agency after 24 years with TBWA. Bianchi was president of the Los Angeles office since 2005 and previously held the same title at TBWA\Chiat\Day San Francisco. DeAnda joined TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles in January 2014 as general manager. He was previously managing director at TBWA\Media Arts Lab and before that held the role of chief operating officer at TBWA\Hakuhodo in Tokyo. He has been with the TBWA network for 12 years. "Luis has fast proven he has what it takes to lead our LA office in to the future," said Tom Carroll, CEO and President, TBWA Worldwide. "His global experience and past success at growing the businesses he has been attached to, speak for themselves." Added Lee Clow, director of Media Arts for TBWA Worldwide: "Having partnered with Carisa Bianchi for more than 20 years, I know she will bring the same passion, intellect and creativity to whatever she decides to do in the future. She has contributed much to my and our success. I will miss her."

Drew Panayiotou was named president & CEO of BBDO Atlanta, succeeding Gill Duff who is leaving the agency. Panayiotou will partner with Wil Boudreau, executive creative director, to lead the 200+ person agency. He starts work on April 14. Most recently, Panayiotou was senior vice president, chief marketing officer, U.S. operations at Best Buy. "Having been CMO at Best Buy and, before that, in marketing and digital roles at Disney and Coca Cola, Drew obviously brings a wealth of experience to the table," said Andrew Robertson, President and CEO of BBDO Worldwide. "And having run a large internal agency at Best Buy, he also knows how to lead a creative group."

McCann Worldgroup named Michael McLaren as CEO of MRM//McCann. McLaren has served as president of MRM//McCann since May 2013. Hank Summy will continue to serve as president of MRM//McCann North America and the Global Commerce practice. At McCann, McLaren first served as worldwide account director in San Francisco on Microsoft in 1999, moving to New York in 2004 as Worldgroup's director of global accounts. He was named president of McCann Erickson USA in 2007. In 2009 he moved to Japan in the dual role of CEO of McCann Worldgroup Japan and regional president of McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific, where he oversaw operations in 14 countries. In 2012 he returned to New York as president of MRM//McCann USA and was named worldwide president the following year. "I am tremendously excited about this new challenge. Marketing today is increasingly reliant on creativity, technology, data and science to help create and build lasting customer relationships," said McLaren. "MRM//McCann is fully immersed in this transformation, and we have developed the right skillset to deliver the breakthrough creative and technology solutions that our clients require."

Rita Mullin was promoted to general manager, Science Channel. Previously, Mullin was the executive vice president, programming and development at OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, overseeing program development and current programming.

Wieden+Kennedy New York hired David Kolbusz as executive creative director. He joins the agency from BBH London, where he serves as deputy executive creative director and partner. Kolbusz joins W+K this summer.

Frances Webb joined 360i as creative director, social content.

Dstillery hired Paul Cushman as a strategic advisor.

SK+G hired Marc Lineveldt as executive creative director.

TV One hired Paul Duong as vice president of programming and scheduling.

PBS promoted Michael Kelley to senior vice president, programming & business affairs and Bill Gardner to vice president, programming and development.

Magnetic hired Sandeep Swadia as chief strategy officer, responsible for driving corporate strategy.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau named Scott Cunningham as vice president of technology and ad operations.

BrightRoll hired Beth Steinberg as vice president of people.

Uber Content signed New York director Keith Ehrlich for commercial representation.

Tim Glenn joined SheKnows as vice president of business development.

Director Tina Bull joined Harpoon Pictures for U.S. representation.

POSSIBLE hired Jim Chesnutt as UK managing director and Lucas Peon as executive creative director.

Evolve Media hired Travlin McCormack as chief technology officer.

Vdopia hired Farzad Jamal for the newly created position of vice president, Europe.

Stephen Labaton was named U.S. president of RLM Finsbury.

PageScience named Steve McEvoy as a vice president of advertising sales.

Cut+Run hired Lucas Eskin as editor.

FullBottle Group hired Kai Mildenberger as chief technology officer.

Dstillery named Ori Stitelman as senior data scientist and Tobey Van Santvoord as senior director of the west region.

Genius Brands named Matthew Kornberg as controller.

CrowdTwist named Chuck Ellison as president & chief operating officer and Eric Rosenthal as senior vice president of sales.

Motive hired Kohl Norville as content director.