The VIA Group announced that RYAN SHIMALA and BARBARA ANDERSON have joined the agency as account managers. Shimala will work on the Banknorth account and Anderson will work on a variety of accounts.

T.J. BENNETT and BILL GRAHAM have been tapped to work together on Draft New York's Verizon account. They join the agency from Wunderman where they worked on the AT&T account. They have both been named creative supervisors, with Graham serving as senior art director and Bennett as senior copywriter. Bennett and Graham have worked jointly on numerous clients, including AT&T, Colgate, Kraft, Microsoft, MetLife, Sony, and Zyrtec.

Hill, Holliday has named PATRICK CALLINAN as senior vice president of strategic analysis in the agency’s Boston office. Callinan will be responsible for analytic consulting (both internally and externally) and will focus on providing quantitative consulting service to the agency’s technology and biotechnology clients. Prior to joining Hill, Holliday, Callinan served as a lecturer at the University of Limerick in Ireland where he taught statistics and economics on the MBA and MBS programs.

DANA TOWER joins Accipiter as the new director of East Coast sales. Tower comes to Accipiter from Corbis, having served as the director of East Coast sales and global market development. RANDY GREY joins the company as director of West Coast sales. Most recently, Grey was with Clear Channel Communications Inc. as an account executive. Prior to Clear Channel, Grey served as the Western regional sales manager for Avaki, an enterprise software company. 

SANDY MCGILL joins the Advertising Council in the newly created position of vice president, market development. McGill works directly with local and regional broadcast, cable, print, outdoor/transit, alternative media, and advertising organizations to secure support for Ad Council PSAs. McGill joins the Ad Council from the programming and media company LOOK TV, where he was a partner. Prior to that, he was vice president of business development, Global Education Network.

TNS Media Intelligence (TNS MI) announced that JON SWALLEN has been promoted to the newly created position of senior vice president of research. Swallen will continue to oversee the company’s methods and procedures for advertising expenditure monitoring and will continue to be responsible for TNS MI’s industry advertising forecasts.Prior to joining TNS MI, Swallen held the title of director of media knowledge at Universal McCann.

Jumpstart Digital Marketing has promoted two of it senior executives: JASON SCOGGINS from vice president, national ad sales to senior vice president, national ad sales and ROB BOLLINGER from director, dealer sales division to senior vice president, dealer sales division.

BabyCenter has named MARY JO ROMEO as publisher of BabyCenter magazine. The former publisher of Parents, former vice president, publisher of Working Mother Media, and onetime ad director of American Baby Group, Romeo will work to expand BabyCenter's presence with key advertisers. She joins BabyCenter after working as vice president regional manager for The Weather Channel.

DAMON BETHEL joined Real Branding as associate media director in the New York office from EarthQuake Media. Damon will assist in East Coast expansion, integration with the traditional agency counterparts on key accounts and overseeing activities of Real Branding's New York media department. Also joining the Real Branding New York team is SARA STEIN as interactive account director. Previously, she held senior account roles at Grey Interactive & Agency.com.

The Leslie Agency, founded in 1959 as Leslie Advertising, has changed its name to The Bounce Agency. In a move to streamline Bounce, JOHN MCDERMOTT the agency’s creative director, has been named the new president of Bounce. DAVE CHESSON is vice chairman and chief financial officer.

JUDY BARRY, vice president, marketing and business development, has been promoted to senior vice president, sales and marketing, at the Wall Street Journal. Barry will succeed SCOTT SCHULMAN, who was promoted to vice president, chief strategy officer at Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company. In her new role, Barry will be responsible for the Journal’s global advertising sales, marketing, and services operations.

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) has named CARYN BROWN as vice president of events and LISA MALONE as vice president-director of marketing. Most recently, Brown was with Frost & Sullivan -- and prior to that, was with the Institute for International Research, a training, seminars, and conferences organization. Malone most recently worked on the John Kerry for President campaign, and has held marketing director positions with Rockwood Realty Associates LLC, CapitalThinking.com, and JP Morgan.

Reuters has expanded its West Coast advertising sales operation with the appointment of WHITNEY TIPTON. She will work with advertising agencies and clients on creative opportunities across Reuters range of advertising venues including Reuters.com, wireless, interactive television, and Reuters Outdoor. She joins Reuters from Ziff Davis Media, where she was district sales manager for 1UP.com in Los Angeles.

Discovery will open an Atlanta sales office on May 2. SCOTT KOHN, an eight-year Discovery veteran, has been promoted to vice president, Southeast sales region, advertising sales for Discovery Networks U.S. to oversee the new office. Kohn began his career with Lowe & Partners in New York, where he worked in the media planning and national broadcast buying departments.

iKnowtion, a marketing and analytic consultancy, has added four marketing analysts on staff to perform customer and marketing program analysis to help the firm’s client base maximize marketing investments and drive increased customer value. They are: HEIDI BUI, KENNETH MILLER, MICHAEL MOSCARITOLO, and SMITHA NALAWADI.

GameDAILY, a video game media company, has named KEVIN G. GIANATIEMPO as vice president of sales. Gianatiempo comes from Tribal Fusion where he sold and managed online ad campaigns for Verizon Wireless, Monster.com, and Google.

JILL RUNYON joins T3 as a senior account executive. Runyon comes to T3 from Milici Valenti Ng Pack Inc. in Honolulu, Hawaii where she worked as an account manager. At T3, Runyon will be the primary client/agency liaison on strategic account planning and creative execution on the i3 account.

Dotomi has named CHUCK DESNYDER, the company's first executive vice president of marketing. He joins Dotomi from Digitas LLC, where he served as executive vice president/general manager. Prior to joining Digitas in 1991, he held management positions at Hill Holiday and Saatchi & Saatchi.

DayPort has named LON BENCINI vice president, director of marketing. Bencini is responsible for the development of DayPort's advertising supported network. Prior to DayPort, he was the director of media services, vice president, group account director at Hawkeye/FFwd, a marketing communications company. In addition, the company added TOM GUZIK to the role of senior vice president, general manager of business development, streaming and IP solutions.

MPG has named GUY CHAMPNISS global director of branded entertainment. He will be overseeing MPG's growing worldwide entertainment-based business, which currently includes MPG Entertainment, MPG Art, MPG Mass Media, MPG Media Especial, and MPG En Scène. He worked at the BBC in two separate stints totalling seven years, and also worked for Carlton Television (now ITV in the UK) and Granada Television.

RICH SCARLE has rejoined Upshot as senior vice president of account services. Scarle will oversee several Upshot clients including Firestone and Kyocera. Most recently, Scarle was a vice president at Draft Worldwide. Prior to joining Draft, he spent five years at Upshot working on accounts including P&G, Montgomery Ward, and Hallmark.

DENISE ANDERMAN was named publisher of American Media’s MPH magazine. Most recently, she was the publishing director of Time 4 Media’sPopular Science Magazine.

Ryan Partnership has promoted SHARON SKOWRON to senior program manager in the agency’s Chicago office.

MICHELLE BALAZ has joined Popstar! Magazine, published by Leisure Publishing, as advertising director, national sales. She will handle sales efforts nationally. Balaz previously worked for both In Touch Weekly and Biography Magazine as Midwest ad director.

JIM KITE joined MediaVest USA as executive vice president, director of insights, research and accountability. He succeeds MARYELLEN VINCENT who left the agency to pursue personal interests. He is responsible for developing and overseeing consumer insight tools for Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) in Canada and Latin America. Kite was previously the executive vice president, director of global research/North American research director at Universal McCann, where he developed proprietary research, insight, and non-econometric modeling planning tools.

ENC Marketing & Communications has named STEPHEN MCCARNEY as senior marketing manager. His clients will include Computer Associates and Juniper Networks. Most recently, McCarney was senior marketing manager for NISH, a central nonprofit organization working with federal government customers to create jobs for people with severe disabilities through the Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) Program.

Draft New York tapped JULIA BOLEY to serve as senior vice president, group account director. Boley spent 12 years at Wunderman, most recently as senior vice president, group account director. While there, Boley oversaw clients such as AT&T, American Express, and Apple Computer. Just prior to joining Draft she was consulting with Ryan Partnership, working with clients such as AT&T Broadband, Cablevision, and Comcast.