Fundamentalco, the brand consultancy founded by Jonny Bauer two years ago, has named Alex Lubar as CEO. Lubar succeeds Bauer as CEO and will report to him. Bauer takes the title of founder and executive chair.  

Lubar joins the firm after serving as global CEO at Omnicom’s DDB since 2023. He joined the agency a year earlier as COO following 10 years at McCann. He held several leadership roles there including president, McCann North America, head of McCann's Asia Pacific region, and CEO of McCann London.  

Prior to forming Fundamentalco with backing from Blackstone, Bauer was global head of brand strategy and transformation at the private equity firm where he worked on strategy across hundreds of portfolio companies.  

Earlier he served at Droga5 for over a dozen years, where he developed the agency’s global strategy practice.   

He also is credited with playing a key role in integrating Drogra5 with Accenture Interactive (since rebranded as Accenture Song) after Accenture purchased the agency in 2019 for an estimated $475 million.  

Fundamentalco has positioned itself as a consultancy that drives branding throughout a company to drive enterprise value, not just marketing ROI.  

It works with private equity clients such as Blackstone, Vista, Bain Capital, Thrive, Towerbrook, Hilton, and public companies like Visa, Clear, and Equinix.   

The company said that Lubar’s appointment signals Fundamentalco’s ambition to scale its integrated model while “maintaining the strategic rigor and execution excellence that fueled its first phase.”  

Lubar’s departure comes shortly before Omnicom is expected to close its deal to acquire Interpublic Group. The deal was announced last December and recently Omnicom officials said they expect it to close by the end of November.   

A DDB spokesperson issued a statement: “We can confirm Alex is leaving DDB and embarking on his next chapter. We have an exceptionally strong leadership team in place who will remain focused on delivering outstanding work for our clients and supporting our people.”  

Separately, Fundamentalco said that investor Quilvest was coming on board as strategic capital partner.