• by Larissa Faw , May 7, 2019

Newly minted MDC Partners Chairman and CEO Mark Penn continues to quickly put his stamp on the holding company he assumed leadership of in March.

Today the accompany announced that it was replacing both its longtime Chief Financial Officer as well as its general counsel, David Doft and Mitchell Gendel respectively. Both executives will stay on for a transition period.

Frank Lanuto is joining the firm as CFO and Jonathan Mirsky will take over as General Counsel and corporate secretary.

Lanuto has extensive holding company experience having served at Interpublic, Publicis Groupe and Omnicom companies.  Most recently, he was vice president, corporate controller at luxury consumer goods company Movado Group. Earlier Lanuto was CFO at Initiative Media Worldwide. He also led Publicis Healthcare Communications as CFO and he served as the Chief Operating Officer and CFO at Omnicom’s Rapp Collins Worldwide.

Mirsky is a partner at the law firm Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis in Washington, D.C. which he co-founded in 1998. Previously, he was an associate in the D.C. offices of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Covington & Burling. According to MDC, he frequently serves as lead counsel for structuring private equity and private company strategic mergers and acquisitions, and regularly represents clients in digital media, marketing, public relations, technology, and telecommunications. His experience encompasses commercial agreements, regulatory innovation, regulatory compliance, dispute resolution and intellectual property.

Penn stated, "Our corporate team's immediate priority will be to operationalize the centralization of resources and services, in order to empower our remarkable talent and fuel our growth ambitions. Frank and Jonathan both come to MDC with the deep and relevant experience necessary to help us build a more successful future for our talent, partners and shareholders."

Penn added, "We are extremely grateful to David and to Mitch, who have both been integral to the building of MDC Partners into the remarkable network it is today, as well as to ensuring the company's firm footing, for us to thrive going forward."

Doft has been with MDC since 2007 and Gendel joined in 2004. Both have generous severance packages spelled out in the firm’s most recent proxy statement.