David Shulman, the former president of Wunderman N.Y., is moving to Organic as CEO of the digital marketing agency. He succeeds Marita Scarfi, Organic’s chief over the past two years, who is leaving the Omnicom company.
In May, when Wunderman promoted Chris Loll to managing director and Shulman’s replacement, the WPP agency said the 43-year-old was leaving for a global leadership opportunity, but did not identify the network.
BBDO Worldwide CEO Andrew Robertson recalls meeting Shulman last year when both were guests of AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong at the Whitney Museum of American Art Gala. After that evening, Robertson knew he wanted to find a way to work with Shulman, who will now report to the network chief since Organic is part of BBDO Worldwide.
“David’s a very special kind of leader in that he’s a very pragmatic visionary. He’s got an uncanny ability to have his eyes on the prize while keeping his feet on the ground,” says Robertson. “He has very broad experience, which is very important in a business that is constantly changing. He’s been a client, worked in different markets and in different businesses like the software company he founded in Kiev. He’s a great guy who is really effective with clients.”
Before joining Wunderman in 2010, Shulman served as chief digital officer for WPP’s Team Dell, where he led global digital efforts in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Americas. Prior to WPP, Shulman was managing director and founder of Digitas Detroit, building the office into a 200-person operation. He spent nine years at Digitas, holding senior client and new-business development roles across Digitas offices in Boston, New York, Detroit and London.
Earlier in his career, Shulman worked on the client side at Jaguar cars as brand strategy manager behind the S-Type introduction. He also was a co-founder of software development firm, Software MacKiev in Kiev, Ukraine.