Rauxa is restructuring its creative department as the women-owned agency seeks to boost its capabilities with a flatter organization. Adan Romero joins as executive creative director to work alongside the agency's two other ECDs, John Avery and George Singer, to lead creative strategy. He previously served as vice president, group creative director at DigitasLBi North America for six years, where he led campaigns for American Express OPEN, among others. Lee Margolis is appointed creative director to work closely with Romero on new business while also helping grow the New York office. He has worked at JWT, Hill Holliday, TBWA\Chiat\Day and, …

WPP's experience agency SET is rejiggering its leadership team as the experiential agency evolves from a production design and execution shop to a full-scale brand/retail strategy and retail activation agency. Current president, chief strategy officer Alasdair Lloyd-Jones is elevated to CEO, while founder Sabina Teshler and chief operating officer Kurt Kujovich will assume the titles of chairman and president, respectively. As CEO, Lloyd-Jones will oversee a network that spans Portland, Los Angeles, New York and London and includes clients Nike, Sprite, Verizon, and BMW. ”We decided now was a good time to establish a leadership structure that enables us to …

The Ayzenberg Group has named Hilary Read to the newly created role of vice president, integrated creative. She will help lead the 300-person agency's Microsoft account and lead the agency’s cross-departmental collaboration efforts.  Read previously worked at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners  and founded HUMAN Live Communications, a producer of in-person experiences. Read has  worked with clients across automotive, technology and entertainment including Hyundai, Google and Turner Networks.

Mike Pierantozzi has joined McKinney NY as executive creative director. Pierantozzi will team with McKinney NY CEO Joe Maglio, who joined the agency earlier this year. Previously Pierantozz was executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York. At Saatchi since 2013, Pierantozzi led the creative for Walmart and is credited with helping to  grow the business from a single project to one of the agency’s largest accounts. Before Saatchi, Pierantozzi served as co-executive creative director at Taxi in New York, where he led the MiO and Applegate accounts. While there, he earned an AICP and Effie award …

Praytell, part of Project Worldwide, has hired Rhea Nanos Woods as vice president of influencer marketing. Woods joins Praytell from VaynerMedia where she built its influencer division. The appointment is effective immediately.  Prior to Vayner, Woods helped develop the ideology behind Thuzio’s Julius influencer marketing platform, where she was director of strategic partnerships. Earlier she worked for William Morris Agency.      

AKA NYC, known for advertising in the New York theater world, has appointed Amanda LaFollette Blackman to the newly-created post of senior vice president of creative strategy and experiential design. She will serve as creative lead for the agency's work. She departs brand experience agency FreemanXP where she was vice president, group creative director. Prior to which she spent 11 years at Jack Morton Worldwide working with clients including American Airlines, Procter & Gamble, MTV, Walmart and Microsoft.  

Publicis Groupe has appointed Emanuele Saffirio as president, Publicis Groupe in Italy to oversee the network's operations there, including Publicis Communications, Publicis Media, Publicis.Sapient and Publicis Health. Italy is the third market to implement a country leadership team, after the arrival of Agathe Bousquet in France and Annette King in the UK. Previously, Saffirio served as CEO of STV DDB, an agency he founded and sold to Omnicom in 2011. Concurrently, Louis Tohmé is promoted from chief financial officer (CFO) Publicis Communications, Italy to CFO of Publicis Groupe Italy. He’ll report to Saffirio and Jean-Michel Etienne, executive vice president and …

McCann has hired Sean Lackey for the new position of Chief Growth Officer for the North America region.  Lackey most recently was Head of Business Development at Droga5 where he’s credited with driving significant growth across new clients and capabilities resulting in $120 million in new business revenue over the last four years.  Prior to joining Droga5 in 2013, Lackey held both business development and client management roles on accounts at BBDO for five years. He had also previously worked in account management at Interpublic Group’s Gotham, Inc.   “Sean has an infectious energy and a great track record of attracting …

Andy Sung is departing R/GA to serve as the first chief digital officer at PureRed as the integrated marketing agency seeks to expand its digital competency. Sung spent more than 14 years at R/GA, most recently as the IPG-owned shop's senior vice president and group managing director and has been credited with developing Walmart's omni-channel transformation strategy. He will be based in the agency's New Jersey office and report to the chief executive officer George Russell, who is based in Atlanta.  

Boston-based digital agency Genuine has hired Tim Haarmann as its new executive vice president and managing director. He’ll be responsible for managing the agency’s day-to-day operations and for developing its strategic growth plan.  Genuine Founder Chris Pape, who handled those duties in the past will now take on the role of Chairman. He's also been Chief Creative Officer but now Stephen Potter, senior vice president, creative director will assume all creative duties at the agency, which was acquired by Interpublic Group in 2014. Prior to joining Genuine, Haarmann was executive vice president and head of account management for North America …