Isaac Mizrahi named Alma CEO as founder takes on DDB’s McDonald's account

Isaac Mizrahi has been named the new CEO of Alma, replacing Luis Miguel Messianu, who is taking on a new role as global chief creative officer of DDB’s McDonald’s account. This marks the first time a new CEO has been named since the multicultural agency changed its name from del Rivero Messianu in 2007. As part of the transition, Mizrahi will drop the chief operating officer title he has held since 2015, but will remain as co-president alongside Alvar Suñol, who also serves as co-president as well as chief creative officer.

Mizrahi, who will be responsible for the day-to-day operations and business growth aspects of the Miami-based agency, doesn’t expect to see significant changes from his previous responsibilities.

“I've been very involved with every aspect of the business with Alvar so there is nothing new that's coming to my plate,” Mizrahi said. “I'm going to probably be more visible to some relationships from a corporate standpoint that I haven't been in the past, but honestly, I don't foresee significant changes. If you were a little fly on the wall, you would see that in every internal agency meeting, every interaction, the three of us were always talking. We have a very similar vision of where we are and where we need to be.”

Messianu, who will be maintaining his chairman role with Alma, says he will be dedicating half his time to the agency he founded by being a “resource” for Mizrahi and Suñol as well as being a part of “key presentations, key new business pitches, and special relationships” with clients such as Wells Fargo, Pepsi, and McDonald's Hispanic U.S. account.

“We have reached a level of maturity that I've been able to have a great succession plan under me with Isaac and Alvar and the rest of the leadership team,” Messianu said. “The reality is that the last few years I've been giving them space to develop their own leadership. So this is just a natural evolution. It’s time for both of them to really take on the C-level of the agency and it’s also the natural evolution of any agency.”

Although Mizrahi was aware of a potential succession plan after he was promoted to chief operating officer in 2015, the timing of this new appointment was “a bit surprising” given how quickly it happened, he said. The decision for the newly created role came about over the last few months as Omnicom Group's DDB proposed the idea of the role to Messianu.

In his new role, Messianu will oversee the creative output of the McDonald’s brand across 46 markets in which the DDB network is responsible for the account. Messianu’s relationship with McDonald’s spans more than 35 years; he previously served as creative director at what was McCann Erikson when the brand was introduced in Mexico in 1985. McDonald’s was also Alma’s first client when Messianu founded the agency in 1994. 

Messianu has given himself a bold proposition as part of his new role, which is to make McDonalds Advertiser of the Year at Cannes within the next two to three years.

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“McDonald's has to be the brand that every creative wants to work on,” Messianu said. “That’s what it was when I started the business. It was the Nike or the Apple of my time and part of my role is to rekindle that love for the brand. “Morgan Flatley [Global CMO of McDonald's] talks about bravery and of course awards are a good measurement, but it's a combination of creativity and effectiveness. My push will be to help both the agencies and the marketing departments to take smarter risks.”

Coming off 12 straight years of revenue growth, Mizrahi is looking into winning more business for Alma in certain categories such as the mobile and telecommunications industries and accounts where Hispanics represent a majority of a brand’s growth.

“Luis Miguel will never stop being our founder and chairman, and he is ever-present through the agency's culture and the creative environment he has built,” Suñol said. “I look forward to taking things to the next level by building upon the success of our creatively effective work.”