• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, September 1, 2017

New research from agency research firm COMVergence has found that over the last 18 months, major creative agencies in the U.S. have appointed 195 new leaders, of which 130 were recruited from the outside and 65 were promoted from within.

By gender, 120 of the newly appointed leaders were men and 75 were women.

The research defines leaders as among 10 key titles comprising the typical agency leadership team. However, similar titles are assigned the same title code (i.e., President, Chairman, Founder, Partner, Managing Director and General Director are assigned to CEO.)

Most of the appointed executive creative directors and chief creative officers were men.

However, nearly half of the 45 reported CEO/MD/Chairman appointments were women.

The report found that among the top 25 U.S. creative agencies FCB, Deutsch and Grey were the most aggressive leadership team recruiters during the 18-month period covered by the research (January 2016 to June 2017). Combined, those agencies accounted for 25% of the recruited leaders.

FCB, DDB and Droga5 were found to be the top women leadership team recruiters, while Havas and Leo Burnett were the top promoters of women to leadership positions.