Executive Shifts at R/GA Sao Paulo and San Francisco

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Last month we broke the news of an executive reshuffling at R/GA San Francisco. That move saw the departure of an MD and an ECD, and today we learned that the agency has tapped two Brazilian vets to replace them.

Paola Colombo, VP/MD, and Paulo Melchiori, VP/ECD, founded the shop’s Sao Paulo office in 2010, and they will hold the same positions in San Francisco moving forward. Fabiano Coura, another Sao Paulo co-founder, will step into Colombo’s role, with Technology Director Edson Sueyoshi moving up to VP.

Departed SF ECD Rob Smiley has gone the freelance route, and there’s no word on any new creative hires in Sao Paulo.

The change will be complete by March 2015, and all four executives will report directly to agency founder/CEO Bob Greenbergwho writes:

“I’m very excited to have Paola and Paulo return to the San Francisco market after successfully launching our award-winning São Paulo office, which after five years continues to grow exponentially.”

In other San Francisco agency news, Mullen/GS&P/DDB alum Stephen Goldblatt is now officially ECD at West, according to his LinkedIn page — so stop sending us tips about it!

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What is Going on with Mullen’s Bay Area ‘Talent Hub?’

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Having typed Mullen in our email search this week, it’s been flooded with tips that have rung the death knell for the agency’s San Francisco office, which was opened in 2012. At the time, Mullen CCO Mark Wenneker proclaimed to staff that the SF office would serve as a “talent hub” that would be “composed of a small group of creatives and a little DNA from the Boston office” who would work as an extension of the agency’s Beantown hub for clients including JetBlue, Grey Goose and Google. We’ve reached out to the agency a couple of times on the alleged closing of its SF branch, but, unusually, have yet to hear back on the matter (you’re not helping yourselves, folks).

While we look into the situation, it does appear that we were correct in our assumptions that Mullen SF chief digital officer Stephen Goldblatt was no longer with the agency. If you recall, Goldblatt joined Mullen as CDO a year ago after spending five at fellow Bay Area outfit, EVB, where he served as partner/ECD.  Anyhow, if you need a breakdown, here’s just a smattering of tips that we’ve received this week alone from different sources but all ringing the same tone:

This morning: “Mullen shut down its SF office”

Yesterday afternoon: “Mullen has shut down the San Francisco office and let go of all but two staffers.”

Two days ago, 2/24: “Mullen is shuttering the San Francisco office.”

 

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