The New York office of Goodby Silverstein & Partners is rounding out its management team with the addition of Tom Morton, who next week joins the upstart operation as head of strategy.
Morton previously was chief strategy officer at Havas Worldwide, New York, as well as joint chief strategy officer for North America.
At Goodby, Morton will partner with executive creative director Christian Haas and managing director Nancy Reyes, executives from the agency's San Francisco headquarters who moved east to open the New York outpost in January.
Morton moved from London to New York for the Havas job in 2011 and while there he helped launch the agency’s Shared, Owned & Earned media unit earlier this year. With a team of 21 analysts, content strategists and community managers, the group focuses on social media and content programs. At Goodby, he'll build out the agency’s strategy practice.
“Great strategy comes from an innate desire and sense of urgency to create something different, both of which Tom clearly possesses,” said Reyes. “Both his experience and enthusiasm make him an ideal addition to our New York management team.”
Before Havas, Morton worked as chief strategy officer at Publicis in the U.K. and as a planning director at the London offices of TBWA, Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe Y&R and BMP DDB London. His Twitter alter ego @DrSamuelJohnson has become a popular social media fixture, attracting nearly 43,000 followers who take in Morton’s witty 18th-century style Tweets.
With the Morton hire, Goodby New York now has a staff of 12. The agency won’t move into its Varick Street digs until later this year but is working out of temporary space, hiring staffers to manage anchor accounts Comcast and YouTube and prospect new business.
“For talent, it’s a very attractive opportunity to shape an office from the beginning,” Haas said. “We’ve had a lot of interest but we want to be selective and find people with the right talent and personality to work here.”
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