Laura Maness – Photo: Privat
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Effective September 1st, Laura Maness will be the new CEO of Gray Worldwide. She succeeds Michael Houston, who was promoted to WPP’s new President US last month.
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Maness has been in the industry for over 25 years and was previously CEO of Havas Group’s flagship North American agency, Havas New York. In this role, she also oversaw several specialty agencies, including a culture-focused design studio (Annex88) and a data-driven client engagement agency (Havas CX) in the US. Prior to that, she served as US Chief Growth Officer for Havas Worldwide North America and as General Manager of Havas Chicago. Before joining Havas, she was Head of Growth at FCB in San Francisco.
At Gray, she is primarily responsible for utilizing the resources of the global network and promoting cooperation between the national companies. The aim should be to put the experiences of the employees and their creative achievements in the foreground. With that, Gray now seems to be pursuing the “Dentsu way” of horizontal collaboration as well. She will help shape Gray’s global strategy and play a central role in attracting and retaining talent through a values-driven culture that values diversity, equality and inclusion while promoting sustainable, responsible growth and impact worldwide .
Incidentally, in addition to Michael Houston, there have been other high-profile departures from Gray in recent weeks, including global creative chairman John Patroulis – who was only on board for a year – and New York chief creative officer Justine Armour. Additionally, Executive Creative Director Andre Gray has joined Annex88, where he is CCO. In fact, the one post that seems to be really steady at the agency is the one Maness now holds: she’s only the sixth CEO in the agency’s 105-year history.
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