Assembly announced yesterday that former M&C Saatchi CEO, Jeff Brooks, had joined them as the agency's chief commercial officer. The move, effective immediately, will see Brooks leading the forward-thinking, New York-based scaled media agency's business development, strategic services and creative agency partnerships. He'll be reporting directly to Martin Cass, the agency's CEO, who has served in that role since Assembly was launched in March this year. This announcement follows news that Catherine Warburton and Michael Nicholas will also be joining the Assembly team as chief investment officer and chief experience officer respectively. It would appear that Brooks is the final piece of the puzzle in rounding out the agency's management team.
Brooks will be reporting directly to Martin Cass, the agency's CEO, who has served in that role since Assembly was launched in March this year
Brooks has spent more than 20 years at numerous top creative agencies and technology companies, so is uniquely equipped for a role at Assembly, an agency which, in the words of MDC Partners CEO and chairman, Miles S. Nadal, aims to “Provide clients with a crucially necessary new business model.” Before Brooks re-launched the New York office of M&C Saatchi in 2012, he served as CEO and chief digital officer at Euro RSCG, and before that, he served as managing director of BBDO's digital agency network, Atmosphere. Other milestones in the industry veteran's vast career include helping to launch media tech start-up Dash.com and working for both Ogilvy & Mather and Grey New York.
Jeff Brooks
Cass feels that “Most media agencies don't have former creative agency CEOs on their team,” especially not those of Brooks' “Pedigree and reputation.” He knows that the management team he's assembled (pardon the pun) might seem a little unconventional, but stresses that "If you're building a different kind of media agency, it would follow suit that your leadership team also looks different." He says everyone at Assembly is “Excited about the experience, energy and fresh perspective” that Brooks will bring to the agency and its clients.
Brooks confesses that he's been “Itching to make this shift for a while and was waiting for the right time and place.”
Speaking in March, as the agency was first being unveiled to the public, Cass said the idea behind Assembly was that it was to be run by people who “Didn't see advertising technology and automation as contradictory to the human creativity powering meaningful communication.” In Brooks, he appears to have found a like-minded soul, though the man himself is more philosophical on the move, and what's in store for him at Assembly. He says "It's hard to define what isn't media in this day and age," and that "We are still at the very beginning of a massive sea change,” a sea change with boundless creative opportunities. He confesses that he's been “Itching to make this shift for a while and was waiting for the right time and place.” He feels that he's found both at Assembly and looks forward to working with Cass “And the Assembly team to heighten the level of innovation and creativity in the organisation."
Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and musician from Kidderminster in the UK. Some assembly required.
