NEW YORK, April 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Ogilvy & Mather announced today the promotion of Lou Aversano to Chief Executive Officer of Ogilvy & Mather New York. Aversano currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for the New York office. He will remain in New York and continue to report to John Seifert, North America Chairman and CEO.

Effective immediately, Aversano will be responsible in his new role for overseeing all of O&M New York's business performance, creative strategy, operations, client relationships and talent management across all of the agency's disciplines, including advertising, customer engagement, public relations, digital, shopper and branded content. New York is the largest geographic operating unit in the Ogilvy & Mather worldwide network.

"Lou has done a phenomenal job serving our New York office for the past three years and IBM for the past 20," said John Seifert, Ogilvy & Mather's North America CEO. "No one is better suited for this unique leadership opportunity than Lou. He will put his heart and soul into making New York the best it can be. Both the agency and our clients will benefit from Lou's dedicated leadership."

Since joining the agency in 1994, Aversano has spent two decades providing invaluable service to both Ogilvy and its clients. As the IBM lead, he has implemented groundbreaking technological and creative innovations to brands across the agency. Under his leadership, IBM and O&M have won countless awards, including over 50 Effie awards for effectiveness. Lou recently partnered with the IBM team at Ogilvy to produce the history making "Made with IBM" campaign, which launched at The Masters golf event earlier this month.

In 2011, Aversano was asked to lead the O&M New York operation as Chief Operating Officer, while maintaining global guidance of the IBM business. In this role, he oversaw all business and client operations in the agency's New York headquarters and worked closely with the New York leadership team to add new clients to the agency roster including Comcast and Tiffany & Co.

"Working across O&M New York and IBM has been a truly rewarding experience, said Aversano. "I'm looking forward to expanding my role in New York and partnering with all of our disciplines to further develop their businesses and deliver award-winning work to our clients that reaches the epitome of creativity and effectiveness."

Aversano joined Ogilvy & Mather in 1994 as an account supervisor. He moved to Paris in 1996 to help lead the IBM account across Europe. In 2000, he returned to New York to join the IBM worldwide leadership team and became President of the IBM business globally in 2007. Prior to joining Ogilvy, Aversano worked at N.W. Ayer and Kirshenbaum & Bond. 

About Ogilvy & Mather
Ogilvy & Mather is one of the largest marketing communications companies in the world. It was named both the Cannes Lions Network of the Year and the EFFIEs World's Most Effective Agency Network for two consecutive years, 2012 and 2013. The company is comprised of industry leading units in the following disciplines: advertising; public relations and public affairs; branding and identity; shopper and retail marketing; health care communications; direct, digital, promotion and relationship marketing; consulting, research and analytics; branded content and entertainment; and specialist communications. O&M services Fortune Global 500 companies as well as local businesses through its network of more than 500 offices in 126 countries. It is a WPP company (NASDAQ: WPPGY). For more information, visit  http://www.ogilvy.com/, or follow Ogilvy on Twitter at @Ogilvy and on Facebook.com/Ogilvy.

SOURCE Ogilvy & Mather