• by Larissa Faw , June 24, 2020

Acceleration Community of Companies (ACC), a one year-old network of marketing, media and communications agencies and complemented by an advisory service, is strengthening its leadership team with two new faces.

Agency veteran Patrick Lafferty joins as Chief Operating Officer to lead the network’s operating group, Business Performance Partners (BPP). He’ll be responsible for managing the business units and supporting their financial, operational and business support needs.

Lafferty will also help lead ACC’s brand experience creative shop, MKG, with the departure of the agency’s president, Tracy Bussan, who will be moving on to a new opportunity.

Lafferty comes from the ad agency mcgarrybowen, where he led the 700-person U.S. team and earlier in his career served as President of independent agency Translation. He also was CEO of BBH North America and global managing director at McCann North America.

Concurrently, Kristena Hatcher is named vice president to oversee all human resources operations for ACC.  Hatcher previously spent six years at Creative Artists Agency, where she led Talent Acquisition for the film, television and foundation departments. She also established and led the Inclusion and diversity function within the HR department.

The reason it took a year for the network to add these two senior-level people was CEO/Founder Michael Nyman wanted to get it right.  He says he spent weeks “studying industry legacy issues, focused and obsessing on the future of marketing, advertising and media, intent on the development of the right business model for today and tomorrow.”

His approach to is to promote collaboration, leadership, and teamwork, with the belief all will yield a “high performing company and great work for our clients,” he explains. “So, I am always intentional on building the right team, experience and job profiles.”