Digitas, which has spent this year year bolstering its U.S. planning staff, has hired Lesley Bielby in the newly-created role of evp, North America planning.
Boston-based Bielby was most recently chief strategy officer at MMB, where she led strategic planning for agency clients like StarKist, Gulf States Toyota, Foster Grant and Ken’s salad dressings. While at the agency, she created MMB*Hive, an integrated unit that provides research in areas like social listening, eye tracking and user experience.
Before MMB, Bielby was chief strategy officer at Hill Holliday and director of account planning at both Merkley and Partners and McKinney. The Scottish native began her career in the U.K., working for agencies like Collett Dickenson Pearce and Partners, Bainsfair Sharkey Trott and Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury and Partners.
The Publicis Groupe digital agency has made 20 new planning hires across the U.S. this year, nearly doubling the size of that staff to 45 people. Part of the charge to Bielby, who reports to Digitas North America CEO Colin Kinsella, is to unite the capabilities of those planners located at the agency’s seven U.S. offices.
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