NEW YORK, Jan. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mindshare North America today announced the appointment of Christine Peterson to Managing Director, Digital Investment Lead for its U.S. operations. Christine will continue to bolster Mindshare's leadership in adaptive digital strategies that drive brand engagement and marketing objectives. Peterson is responsible for all digital investment across the agency's portfolio of clients, working closely with cross-capability digital teams and client leadership. In addition, she leads a team responsible for driving forward Mindshare's approach to initiatives such as trading, viewability, and programmatic, collaborating with GroupM, particularly in the use of [m]PLATFORM data and technology tools. Peterson reports to Adam Gerhart, U.S. CEO, Mindshare and Susan Schiekofer, Chief Digital Investment Officer, GroupM.  

Mindshare also announced the appointments of Frank Puma to Managing Director, Digital Investment Lead for the New York market; and Emma Witkowski to Managing Director, Digital Investment Lead for the West Coast and Atlanta markets. They join Jason Smith, Managing Director, Digital Investment Lead for the Chicago market, to form the regional leadership structure, reporting to Peterson. The moves strengthen Mindshare's services and more directly facilitate an integrated team approach across investment, planning and strategy.

"Christine's fierce instinct for strategic media investment ensures the best opportunities for brand engagement. Combined with her holistic investment experience across all channels, her influence will be felt by all Mindshare clients continuously honing their digital strategies," said Adam Gerhart, U.S. CEO, Mindshare. "With Emma, Frank and Jason on the team, we have experienced regional leadership to work closely with our digital strategists, planners and client teams to develop adaptive programs that truly make media a competitive advantage for our clients."

Christine Peterson

Peterson joins Mindshare from Initiative, where she served as Managing Director of Investment and was responsible for investment across all media channels. Prior, she led MRY's blended media offerings across channels and structured their strategic distribution approach in the U.S. Christine has also held roles at Publicis and Carat. 

"Christine's expertise will bolster the innovation and creativity of Mindshare's digital investment in the U.S. and I look forward to close collaboration with her as part of GroupM's larger digital investment organization," said Susan Schiekofer, Chief Digital Investment Officer, GroupM North America.  "She has the insights-focused approach and competitive spirit that is requisite to being part of GroupM."

Frank Puma

Puma joined Mindshare in 2014 as Director, Digital Investment. He has been actively involved within the digital industry for over 16 years, with experience across all forms of digital media, including display, search, mobile, video and social. His eight years at GroupM include a stint as Maxus's Group Planning Director. Puma recently won a Gold Cannes Lion and Silver Effie for his work with Volvo.   Frank also recently won the Cynopsis Digital Planning and Buying award.

Emma Witkowski

Witkowski joined Mindshare in 2014 as Director, Digital Investment for Los Angeles. She has 16 years of industry experience, having worked at agencies such as OMD and Carat.  She started her career in London as a TV buyer, before moving up to lead a TV trading team. She then transitioned to digital; in her first digital role, she masterminded and implemented the setup of a digital buying team. Emma was recently named one of the winners on Cynopsis Digital's inaugural "It List," honoring top leaders across digital media.

Jason Smith

Smith joined Mindshare in 2016 as Managing Director, Digital Investment Lead for Chicago. He brings more than 13 years of industry experience to his role. He joined from Horizon Media, where he served as VP of Digital Media Activation, leading the agency's digital strategy, partnership development, and training/education initiatives. During his time at Horizon, Smith also led digital planning and integration for brands across numerous business verticals, including insurance, finance, wholesale foods, and many more.

ABOUT MINDSHARE

Mindshare is a global media agency network with billings in excess of US$34.5 billion (source: RECMA). The network consists of more than 7,000 employees, in 116 offices across 86 countries spread throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.  Each office is dedicated to forging competitive marketing advantage for businesses and their brands based on the values of speed, teamwork and provocation. Mindshare is part of GroupM, which oversees the media investment management sector for WPP, the world's leading communications services group. Visit us at mindshareusa.com or MindshareInTheLoop.com and follow us on Twitter @mindshare_NA and facebook.com/MindshareNA.

About GroupM

GroupM is the leading global media investment management group serving as the parent to WPP media agencies including Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom, Maxus, Essence and m/SIX, as well as the programmatic digital media platform, Xaxis, each global operations in their own right with leading market positions. GroupM's primary purpose is to maximize the performance of WPP's media agencies by operating as leader and collaborator in trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, and proprietary tool development. GroupM's focus is to deliver unrivaled marketplace advantage to its clients, stakeholders and people, and is increasingly working closely for the benefit of clients with WPP's data investment management group, Kantar.  Together GroupM and Kantar account for over 50% of WPP's group revenues of more than $20 billion. 

Discover more about GroupM at www.groupm.com.
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SOURCE Mindshare North America

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