CPB revamps leadership team and names Brad Simms global CEO

CPB is revamping its leadership team following the August departure of its former global CEO Marianne Malina to 72andSunny with five new appointments. Brad Simms will be taking on the role of global CEO while maintaining his roles as CEO of Gale and chief product officer of Stagwell’s Brand Performance Network.

Alongside Simms, Josh Braithwaite, formerly an executive creative director at Mother New York, has been named North American chief creative officer, replacing Jorge Calleja, who left in September 2021. Stefani Chambers, the founder and chief strategy director at agency El Why, has been tapped as group strategy director, North America. It was not immediately clear who Chambers is replacing. Abbie Baehr, who was named chief strategy officer last year, isn’t listed on the agency’s new website. 

CPB’s Europe CEO Helen James, who has been with the agency for five years, will take on a wider business development focus globally and CPB Latin America CEO Vinicius Reis, who has been with the agency for eight years, will expand his remit to lead global mergers and acquisitions for the agency.

The agency, once a pinnacle of the advertising world, has had a rough couple of years with the shop experiencing leadership team shuffles and account losses including Hotels.com, Fruit of the Loom and most recently American Airlines.

Global focus

The expanded leadership team will be looking to position CPB as a global agency as “opposed to a handful of regional offices,” according to Simms, who said he needed to elevate existing CPB leadership to accomplish that. He said that is a “big change” from how Crispin previously handled leadership hires.

“Crispin admittedly has had some ups and downs in the last few years, but I think the unlock that we have figured out, and it's reflective in what's happening in the agency and it's been happening for the last six months, is just how do we give the existing leadership who has the passion, who know how to grow the business, the reins to make that happen,” he said.

Simms said he considered the idea of folding CPB into another agency but that it ultimately “didn’t make sense.”

“When you step back and you look at the work, and you look at the team here that is on the ground, this is not a team that we've hired from some other old school agencies and tried to bring in to reinvigorate Crispin,” Simms said. “For me, this is a focus question. If we just get Crispin globally focused, the momentum's going to continue and the agency's going to continue to grow.”

'Creativity at the heart'

The agency will also allow its creative departments to work on briefs across different regions globally, which James said is different from how the agency operated previously.

“My teams in London may work on some U.S. briefs or some Latin America briefs,” she said. “I hope what we're going to show very quickly is a different way to do global that has more creativity at the heart.”

Simms says the biggest difference between what CPB will be moving forward compared to the last few years is the level of “focus” that the team will have in terms of taking on the right accounts.

"I think that the biggest lesson learned in the last three to four years at Crispin is we are clear on our strategy, we can see it winning, and we need to be focused on working with clients and working with opportunities that fit with our strategy as opposed to the big pitch that comes in that lands on our desk," Simms said.

CPB also is looking for acquisitions. Reis says he's seeking content, social and digital shops “with a focus on digital transformation, data science and PR," to potentially add to the agency fold.

Currently, CPB’s Latin America team has about 170 employees, while Europe and North America have 45 and 40 employees, respectively. In the U.S., the agency, which closed its Denver office last year in favor of a remote policy, has opened office spaces in Austin and New York within the past 90 days and is currently recruiting for 13 open positions in the country and 20 positions in total around the world. While the agency’s office policy will remain flexible, Simms expressed there was a need to have physical hubs for the agency to grow.

“We're in a battle for talent and in a battle for talent, you have to be flexible,” Simms said.  “However, we're really doubling down in New York and Austin as places especially on this next wave of hires.”

Client roster

In the U.S., the agency's clients include Consumer Cellular and Buchanan’s whiskey. In Europe, the agency recently launched a campaign for Tinder and added GoFundMe as a client while CPB added Lenovo business in Brazil after Assembly was named media agency of record on the account. Simms says that's an example of how Stagwell will be utilizing its Brand Performance Network, which was rebranded from its previous name “Stagwell Media Network,” and encompasses various Stagwell media and creative agencies, including CPB.

Simms, who founded Gale in 2014, has held dual CEO roles before. In 2019 he took on a chief executive role at Assembly prior to its merging with ForwardPMX last year. “I really view my role here as bringing a proven model around scaling global agencies,” Simms said. "What [CPB] really needs is someone that understands how to structure a global agency and create and maintain momentum.”

Avi Dan, founder and CEO of consultancy Avidan Strategies, said he was surprised to see Simms handling two CEO roles for different agencies. But Dan called the move to keep the CPB name moving forward “admirable.”

“The name is still a good name,” he said. “It’s unfortunate what happened to the agency over the last decade or so. I think CPB was a great agency. I’m really pulling for them to be successful again.”