• by Steve McClellan , July 9, 2018

Global creative consultancy Lippincott has tapped R/GA veteran Chris Colborn to be its new chief experience officer.  Colborn will join Lippincott's management team and lead the firm's innovation practice.

Colborn, who is based in New York, joins the consultancy after a 20-year stint with Interpublic’s R/GA.  For the last four years he’s been  executive vice president and global chief design and innovaton officer at the agency. For the previous seven years he was R/GA’s chief experience officer.

Colborn is credited with helping R/GA evolve from a small digital studio to a full-service global marketing agency and innovation consultancy. During his time at the agency he’s worked with many brands including Bradesco, Beats, Macquarie, McCormick, Nike, Nokia, Samsung and Verizon.  He also mentored agile startups via the R/GA Venture Studio.

Colborn is the latest example of a senior agency executive joining the consultancy ranks as the two sectors become increasingly competitive with service offerings to clients.

But agencies are also attracting talent from consultants. A recent example: two weeks ago Carat appointed Accenture Interactive co-founder Christine Removille to be its next global president.

Commenting on the appointment, Rick Wise, Lippincott's CEO, stated "Chris excels at uncovering novel whitespace where technology disruption meets emerging behavior. We are thrilled he has joined the Lippincott team not only to grow our Innovation practice, but to help drive continuous innovation across all of our core capabilities."