Goodby Silverstein & Companions (GS&P) has appointed Sarah Thompson as its first chief government officer.
The appointment marks a homecoming for certainly one of promoting’s most completed leaders. Thompson started her profession as an account supervisor at GS&P within the early Nineties, earlier than shifting on to assist construct Droga5 into some of the celebrated inventive outlets of the 2000s.
Thompson spent greater than a decade at Droga5, finally serving as international CEO till 2021, the place she guided the company via worldwide growth and its 2019 sale to Accenture. She later turned international head of promoting and content material at Accenture Track, overseeing 5,000 international staffers and integrating greater than a dozen acquisitions into the community.
She is now shifting to New York Metropolis from Connecticut to guide GS&P from its East Coast workplace, which serves shoppers together with BMW, MINI, Frito-Lay, and Comcast. Although GS&P has lengthy been anchored in San Francisco, basing its first CEO in New York underscores the workplace’s rising function within the company’s future.
Thompson mentioned GS&P is “nonetheless about highly effective inventive concepts” at its core. “That’s by no means going to vary.”
In her new function, she reunites with GS&P chief inventive officer Margaret Johnson, who she started her profession with on the company. Collectively, the 2 will companion intently to create “work that works.”
“She doesn’t imagine that inventive and business-driving concepts should be mutually unique,” Johnson mentioned of Thompson.
Johnson additionally mentioned GS&P will proceed to experiment with new applied sciences and codecs below Thompson’s management. The company was early to make use of AI with “Cheetos Imaginative and prescient” in 2018, an app modified pictures into the orange colour of the snack utilizing laptop imaginative and prescient and machine studying. In 2023, GS&P appointed Martin Pagh Ludvigsen as director of AI and later appeared at Cannes alongside OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap.
Extra not too long ago, it has delivered tasks together with “Giraffes on Horseback Salad,” a reimagining of Dalí’s unmade 1937 screenplay with Google’s AI fashions, and “Dial Dalí,” a hotline that permit individuals “communicate” with the artist utilizing voice synthesis.
Thompson argued that in mild of technological shifts, inventive businesses will stay important. “On the finish of the day, nice creativity, grounded in deep strategic pondering, remains to be a necessity. It’s nonetheless what shoppers need,” she mentioned.
Her arrival comes as guardian firm Omnicom prepares to amass Interpublic Group (IPG), a transfer Thompson mentioned would solely strengthen GS&P’s entry to information, media and expertise.
GS&P mentioned internet new enterprise income has elevated by 300% since July 2024.
