Lars Bastholm, most recently chief digital officer of Ogilvy North America, is joining Cheil USA as chief creative officer.
Bastholm is the latest executive hired by Buz Sawyer, who became president and CEO of what is now known as Cheil, The Americas, in January. Bastholm will work with Dave Weaver, president of the Korean company’s One Agency, to relaunch that unit as Cheil USA. One Agency’s primary client is Samsung, which is also owned by Cheil in Korea. As part of the change, Weaver, the former chief strategic officer at TM Advertising who was hired in his current role in May, becomes CEO of Cheil USA. Bastholm and Weaver will be based in New York.
Bastholm is tasked with elevating Cheil’s creative profile in the U.S., where it still primarily works for Samsung despite being in the market for more than 20 years. Sawyer also wants Bastholm to foster creative integration across Cheil’s Americas network, including Cheil Mexico, Cheil Brazil, Cheil Canada, and Cheil Central America.
Prior to Ogilvy, Bastholm spent four years at AKQA, where he opened the digital agency’s New York office and helped land global agency of record business from Motorola, Coca-Cola, and Smirnoff. He previously worked in Scandinavia, where he started Grey Interactive in Copenhagen and joined Framfab as creative director in his native Denmark, working on brands like Nike and Lego.
Bastholm begins at Cheil on Jan. 2.