• by Larissa Faw , April 1, 2021

BBDO San Francisco is appointing Kelly Johnson as Chief Executive Officer replacing longtime BBDO San Francisco CEO, Jim Lesser, who left the position at the end of last year to become a client of the agency, as SVP, Brand Marketing at enterprise software company, ServiceNow.

Johnson joins from her most recent post as President of 215 McCann, where she has spent the past eight years leading brands such as LinkedIn, Workday, Xbox, Minecraft, Hulu, Pandora and the SF Giants pro baseball team. Her experience also includes stints at agencies like Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Concurrently Thiago Cruz is taking over creative reins as Chief Creative Officer from Matt Miller, who is being promoted to the role of Chief Creative Officer on AT&T, overseeing the client across Omnicom, leading teams in LA, Dallas and NY.

Cruz, originally from Brazil, joins BBDO San Francisco after over 15 years working for creative agencies around the world. He most recently served as Creative Director for Pereira O'Dell. 

Throughout his career he has developed campaigns for clients such as Diesel, AB InBev, Heineken, Motorola, Coca-Cola, American Express, and KFC.