Droga5 Veteran Sarah Thompson Returns to GS&P as First CEO

Goodby Silverstein & Companions (GS&P) has appointed Sarah Thompson as its first chief govt officer.The appointment marks a homecoming for certainly one of promoting’s most achieved 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 one of the vital celebrated inventive outlets of the 2000s.Thompson spent greater than a decade at Droga5, finally serving as world CEO till 2021, the place she guided the company by worldwide growth and its 2019 sale to Accenture. She later turned world head of promoting and content material at Accenture Tune, overseeing 5,000 world staffers and integrating greater than a dozen acquisitions into the community.She is now shifting to New York Metropolis from Connecticut to steer GS&P from its East Coast workplace, which serves purchasers 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 position within the company’s future.Thompson stated GS&P is “nonetheless about highly effective inventive concepts” at its core. “That’s by no means going to alter.” In her new position, 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 stated of Thompson. Johnson additionally stated 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 images into the orange coloration 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 lately, 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 gentle of technological shifts, inventive businesses will stay important. “On the finish of the day, nice creativity, grounded in deep strategic considering, continues to be a necessity. It’s nonetheless what purchasers need,” she stated. Her arrival comes as guardian firm Omnicom prepares to accumulate Interpublic Group (IPG), a transfer Thompson stated would solely strengthen GS&P’s entry to knowledge, media and expertise.GS&P stated web new enterprise income has elevated by 300% since July 2024.