Droga5 names chief strategy officers as the agency 'rebuilds’ its culture
A little more than a year after its founder headed to Accenture, the agency looks to rediscover and redefine "The Droga5 way."
Kass
Droga5 is revamping its strategy team in New York as the agency continues to evolve following the elevation of its founder David Droga to CEO of Accenture Interactive, now Accenture Song, a little more than a year ago.
In the latest moves, Colleen Leddy, previously the agency’s chief engagement officer, and Harry Román-Torres, previously the agency’s chief brand strategy officer, are being named co-chief strategy officers of Droga5 New York, which are new roles. There are no plans to fill the pair's previous roles, according to Susie Nam, Droga5’s CEO of the Americas.
“It took us a minute between COVID and really fortifying our leadership team to realize that they're almost two halves of one brain in the sense that [Leddy] is anchored from media and communication strategy and [Román-Torres] from more principle brand strategy,” said Nam, who added that the two had been acting in the chief strategy officer roles unofficially “for a while.”
Leddy and Román-Torres have both spent nearly 10 years with the agency and will lead Droga5’s strategy department of about 100 employees, which is composed of its brand, data, communications and media sub-disciplines. Duties won’t be split between the two and will require “self-governing” depending on client needs, Nam said. “We are designing it so that they're in charge of all of it together,” Nam said. “So depending on what the ask is, Harry will say, 'Oh, that's a Colleen thing' and Colleen will go 'Oh, that's a Harry thing.'”
The strategy team in April hired Michael Osbourn, who previously led strategy at 72andSunny New York, as head of brand strategy. In June, Droga5 promoted Lily Ng to head of data strategy, and in October named Jonathan Daly to head of communications strategy and Ben Nilsen to head of media strategy.
New guard vs. the old guard
Nearly a year into her role, Nam says the agency has been “rebuilding” its culture internally. One aspect of the agency’s culture that Nam and her team felt they had to address recently was the idea of an “old and new guard” within the agency, according to Nam.
“We found that the old guard and the new guard in the agency were weaponizing this idea of 'the Droga5 way,'” Nam said, noting that some employees might say “‘Oh, that's not the Droga5 way' or 'Oh, David would've said that,' or 'David would've done this.’ What we wanted to do was to think about that as well as new people coming that needed learning and development plus the EDI lens of diversity and inclusion.”
To address this, Nam helped lead an all-agency meeting a few months ago to discuss what the “DNA of the agency is” which Nam characterized as a “restart” for many employees culturally.
“There is no Droga5 way, each person imprints on us exactly what that new way should be,” Nam said. “And we have new people here, it's not the same. ‘David says,’ doesn't apply anymore. It's a completely different alchemy. And I think people needed to hear that so that we could not allow the old guard to weaponize that stuff against the new guard. It’s also a way us kind of rebirthing what has been a stellar agency for a very long time, and acknowledging what social changes have happened over the pretty radical past three years.”
Nam says Droga and Thompson have been “supportive” in “rewriting” what Droga5 is while also helping decide what aspects will remain the same at its “core.”
“I think we thought in the past we were too cool for school and that we didn't need to talk about those things or write it down even and I think we're realizing that you have to state the obvious now, because you're having to welcome in people and almost onboard your old people too,” Nam added. “It's like a re-onboarding of everybody. And it's really pumped a lot of energy into the place in a way because we now have the same language.”
Seismic changes
The latest appointments cap off some seismic changes over the past couple of years at an agency once known for its steadiness and lack of turnover. The shifts include some familiar faces rising the ranks within Droga5 and Accenture and others leaving for new opportunities.
“We have benefited greatly in having very little turnover for a very long time,” Nam said. “But then we kind of became [like] everyone else and we had a certain amount of turnover." She added: "We had to co-author a different way of working that worked for our group of people.”
In January of this year, Droga5's Global CEO Sarah Thompson left the role to become Accenture Song’s global lead for communications and content. Former Droga5 Global Chief Creative Officer Neil Heymann, who had left briefly to join Publicis, rejoined Accenture Song as global chief creative officer in February 2022.
Also this year, Droga5’s Co-Chief Creative Officer Tim Gordon departed to join Zulu Alpha Kilo and its other co-chief creative officer, Felix Richter, left to join Mother London.
Scott Bell was promoted to take over as chief creative officer in New York. Droga5 London’s CCO David Kolbusz moved on in May to join independent agency Orchard. The Droga position was soon filled by Shelly Smoler.
In April of last year, Global Chief Strategy Officer Jonny Bauer left to join Blackstone. In November 2021, Nam was promoted to CEO of the Americas, Managing Director Dan Gonda became president of Droga5 New York and Sean Lackey added global duties to his chief marketing officer role.
