At BBDO, Peter Sherman was known as being an account guy who worked well with strong creative personalities like Eric Silver and Gerry Graf. That acumen will come in handy in his new role as the CEO of JWT New York, which has been reworking its creative ranks in an effort to rebuild the agency’s profile after the departure of North American CCO Ty Montague in 2010.
Sherman, the Milan-based managing director of BBDO Europe, joins the WPP agency in mid-August. The 49-year-old effectively takes over for Rosemarie Ryan and Montague, who were co-presidents of JWT’s New York office before taking on those roles in North America. (They left in March 2010 to form their own agency Co: Collective.)
Sherman has been in his European role for the last 3.5 years, in which he managed 35 BBDO offices in 18 countries, excluding those in England, France and Germany. Those who know him say he wanted to return to the states.
“I’ve made it a point to identify talent around the world and Peter is one of those people, but I thought he was locked in at BBDO. Turns out he was not so locked in,” said JWT global chief Bob Jeffrey, to whom Sherman reports. “New York is our single biggest office in the network and a leading indicator. Peter’s worked on so many different pieces of business and given that our company is so international and global, it’s great to have someone with his background running the flagship.”
Before moving to Europe, Sherman was managing director of BBDO West in S.F. for nearly five years. He had previously worked at BBDO New York for eight years, rising to evp, sr. account director. He’s also worked at McCann Erickson, New York and the Chicago offices of FCB and Cramer-Krasselt.
Following the departure of Montague, JWT appointed his successor CCO Jeff Benjamin from Crispin Porter Bogusky and Mike Geiger from Goodby Silverstein & Partners, JWT North America’s president and chief integration officer. A year ago Benjamin named JWT veteran Matt MacDonald and former CPB CD Ryan Kutscher co-CCOs in New York. Kutscher left the agency in April.
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