• by Larissa Faw , June 17, 2014

Agency veteran Matt Dowshen, senior partner, managing director and director of client services at Ogilvy & Mather for the past five years, is joining Partners + Napier as managing director, effective immediately.

Dowshen will report directly to CEO Sharon Napier, and will oversee all staff in its New York office.
“I’ve known Matt for a long time. We worked together on the same client while he was at Deutsch, and he was a great competitor,” said Napier. “I knew he would be the right entrepreneurial leader to help us achieve our vision for New York.”

Partners + Napier approached Dowshen as the agency was looking for a proven agency leader to grow the New York office, which opened in 2012 and manages accounts such as Lufthansa Airlines. Dowshen comes to Partners + Napier with more than 20 years of integrated marketing and agency management experience. He has worked with clients that include IKEA, De Beers, Unilever, Bacardi/Grey Goose, Kraft, Cisco, Kodak, and Stolichnaya. He also held leadership roles at Deutsch NY and JWT, working in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the U.S.

Meanwhile, this job jump reunites Dowshen with his longtime creative partner Jason Marks who also left Ogilvy to join Partners + Napier as Executive Creative Director. At Ogilvy, the two executives collaborated on global accounts for Kraft and Philips. In fact, their work for Philips Norelco’s “I’d FAQ Me” campaign recently won an Effie Award and multiple digital honors.

Partners + Napier is part of Project: WorldWide, an independent global network of agencies. Founded in 2004, the agency has offices in New York, NY, Rochester, NY, and San Francisco. Clients include  Constellation Brands, Keurig Green Mountain, Delta Private Jets, and Capital One.