• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, August 31, 2018

GroupM media agency has appointed Jon Gittings executive vice president, strategy for North America. In this newly created role, Gittings will oversee Essence’s strategy teams across the company’s offices in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and Toronto.

The agency said Gittings would be part of the North American executive team ( led by NA CEO  Steve Williams) and  also work closely with the agency’s global strategy leadership team, including Essence co-founder and chief product officer Andrew Shebbeare and president, global strategy and analytics Simeon Duckworth.

Gittings joins Essence from sibling GroupM agency MediaCom where he has spent the last four-plus  years, most recently as chief strategy officer for the Americas, and previously as global business development strategy officer. 

Prior to joining GroupM and MediaCom in 2014, Gittings spent a decade and a half in senior and executive strategy and planning roles at OMD and Omnicom. 

Gittings joins Essence during a period of rapid growth for the agency which has expanded by more than 40% to nearly 1500 employees over the last 12 months. This includes the addition of more than 400 employees globally and 180 employees in North America since the start of the year. 

The agency has added significant new pieces of business during that time as well, including partnerships with Bayer and T-Mobile. 

Much of the growth follows a  commitment last year by GroupM  to expand Essence beyond its digital roots into a fuller-service agency with a wider geographical footprint providing both digital and traditional media services.