Barbarian Group Taps Cathy Butler as CEO Following Tumultuous Year
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Cheil Worldwide’s The Barbarian Group has hired DigitasLBI’s Cathy Butler as CEO, effective immediately, following a string of executive departures and changes over the last year.
Ms. Butler is taking the position from Aaron Lau, who assumed the role of interim CEO last September after former chief executive Peter Kim left the agency. Mr. Kim succeeded previous CEO Sophie Kelly, who stepped down at the end of 2015. Following Ms. Kelly’s departure, Chief Creative Officer Edu Pou, head of talent and HR Michele Prota, head of account management Sherri Chambers, Creative Director Jill Applebaum, Chief Technology Officer Robert Christ and co-founders Keith Butters and Benjamin Palmer, among others, left Barbarian.
“We’ve been looking for this role for quite some time now. It’s a very important time, where we’ve been doing a lot of soul searching and looking at where we take Barbarian into the 21st century given we have a fantastic foundation and culture, and this is a chance to reinvent ourselves,” said Mr. Lau, adding that he did more than 200 hours of interview for the CEO position with at least 50 people.
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