• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, July 31, 2019

Matt Williams, the former CEO at Interpublic’s The Martin Agency, has landed at a Richmond, VA startup called Brand Federation as equity partner-managing partner. The firm bills itself as a strategic marketing consultancy.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch did a lengthy article on the company a couple of weeks ago that is here.

You’d never know it from reading the piece, but Williams was part of the upper management purge orchestrated by IPG in the wake of the sex harassment scandal involving the shop’s former longtime Chief Creative Officer Joe Alexander. Reports alleged he engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment going back to the 1990s.

That harassment was reportedly dismissed, overlooked and generally not taken seriously by upper management at the agency. Alleged victims were reportedly told to go work it out with the alleged harasser. Others who spoke up were laid off.

Both Alexander and Williams started at the agency in the early '90s. They were named Chief Creative Officer and CEO, respectively, in 2012.

In late 2017, the #MeToo movement came knocking at the agency’s door, which was probably the best thing to happen to it in quite some time.

It’s been making a lot of progress ever since.