O&M Vet Aversano Named CEO Of The Shop's Flagship Office

WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather has named Lou Aversano to the newly-created position of CEO O&M New York. Aversano has been the global lead for the agency’s IBM account and COO for the New York office where he will remain while continuing to report to John Seifert, North America Chairman and CEO.

The promotion is effective immediately.  Aversano will be responsible in his new role for overseeing all of O&M New York’s business performance, creative strategy, operations, client relationships and talent management across all of the agency’s disciplines, including advertising, customer engagement, public relations, digital, shopper and branded content.

New York is the largest geographic operating unit in the Ogilvy & Mather worldwide network.

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“Lou has done a phenomenal job serving our New York office for the past three years and IBM for the past 20,” said Seifert.  “Both the agency and our clients will benefit from Lou’s dedicated leadership.”

Aversano joined the agency in 1994. As the shop’s IBM lead, he’s credited with having implemented numerous groundbreaking technological and creative innovations. Under his leadership, IBM and O&M have won countless awards, including over 50 Effie awards for effectiveness. Recent initiatives for the client included the “Made with IBM” campaign, which launched at The Masters golf event earlier this month.

In 2011, Aversano was named COO of the agency’s New York office, while maintaining global guidance of the IBM business. In this role, he oversaw all business and client operations in the agency’s New York headquarters and worked closely with the New York leadership team to add new clients to the agency roster including Comcast and Tiffany & Co.

“I’m looking forward to expanding my role in New York and partnering with all of our disciplines to further develop their businesses and deliver award-winning work to our clients that reaches the epitome of creativity and effectiveness,” Aversano stated.

Aversano joined Ogilvy & Mather as an account supervisor. He moved to Paris in 1996 to help lead the IBM account across Europe. In 2000, he returned to New York to join the IBM worldwide leadership team and became President of the IBM business globally in 2007. Prior to joining Ogilvy, Aversano worked at N.W. Ayer and Kirshenbaum & Bond. 

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