Kristen Cavallo is stepping down as global CEO of Interpublic’s MullenLowe this spring but will remain available to the company in an advisory capacity until 2025.  

The 30-year industry veteran says she will apply her well-honed communications skills to political and societal causes.  

In 2022, Cavallo was named global CEO of MullenLowe. She’s credited with overseeing new business wins and further diversifying the leadership teams and workforce of the global network.   

Prior to her role at MullenLowe, Cavallo spent six years as CEO of The Martin Agency. She was appointed CEO at the agency amidst a sex-harassment scandal that made national headlines at the height of the #MeToo movement. She's credited with getting the agency back in top form, evolving its culture and taking steps to make the agency’s leadership team and staff more diverse and gender-balanced. At the time she said she was determined that the shop not be defined by its #MeToo encounter. The bigger issue, she told MediaPost in 2018 is that change should be “about progress,” and not just tagging bad behavior.

She had been a top strategist at MullenLowe before IPG asked her take on the CEO role at TMA in 2017. Cavallo joined Mullen in 1994 as employee #174.

Cavallo’s successors as CEOs are Frank Cartagena at MullenLowe U.S. and Danny Robinson at The Martin Agency. Alex Leikikh, Interpublic executive vice president and MullenLowe global chairman, will resume global MullenLowe CEO responsibilities, a role he held previously.  

“As I think about where I’ll direct my energies next, I’ve been wondering if many of our nation’s problems are ultimately marketing and communications problems," Cavallo stated. "How we connect with one another, how we unify, how we fulfill our promises. These questions have been really taking over my headspace. I want to apply what I’ve learned to the kinds of issues I care most about at this stage in my life.”