President of Wunderman Team Detroit
President Wunderman Team Detroit
The Good Search successfully recruited Mark Russell to the role of President Wunderman Team Detroit, a joint WPP venture among JWT, Y&R, Wunderman, Ogilvy, and Group M media companies Mediaedge and Mindshare. Mr. Russell was responsible for the enterprise-wide digital work for Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Ford Customer Discipline Division, and Ford Credit. He led approximately 13 hundred employees.
With a 17-year professional background in all core business functions, including business management, sales, marketing, business development, finance, operations, and legal, Mark has been cited by the New York Times and other publications as an agent of change for agencies adjusting to the digital age.
Before becoming President Wunderman Team Detroit, he served as senior vice president and managing director of the Boston and Dallas offices of Carat Fusion. Clients included John Deere, Wachovia, AOL, Reebok, Motorola, and Radio Shack. He was also managing director of interactive at Boston’s Connelly Partners, serving Nestle Purina, Ocean Spray, BJ’s, and others.
Mr. Russell holds a BA with honors from St. Lawrence University, a JD in Corporate Law from the Western New England School of Law, and has been a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association since 1996.
Update
As President of Wunderman Team Detroit for some 3 years, Mr. Russell led the global digital marketing transformation of Ford Motor Company from 2007 to 2012. He was promoted to dual roles of President for Wunderman Toronto and Managing Director of a newly created central region of Blast Radius’ presence in Dearborn, Chicago, and Toronto. He managed the Wunderman Network across Wunderman, Blast Radius, KBMG, and Iconmobile. During his tenure, he is credited with saving several, high-profile accounts, including Microsoft Canada, Sirius XM, and Kraft. He also stabilized and turned around an underperforming agency. In just 2 years, the firm landed $8+ million in new and recurring business, replacing significant lost revenues.
Today, Mr. Russell serves as Co-Founder and CEO of CatalystXL, the developer of Cardware™, the no-code universal content and communications hub that activates everyone’s knowledge, engagement, and productivity across the enterprise. Mr. Russell has previously held the position of Chief Executive Officer for OTTO Detroit, a digital transformation agency he founded in 2012 upon his departure from Wunderman.
About WPP
WPP plc is a British multinational advertising and public relations company with its main management office in London, United Kingdom, and its executive office in Dublin, Ireland. It is the world’s largest advertising company by revenue and employs around 162,000 people in 3,000 offices across 110 countries. It owns advertising, public relations, and market research networks, including Grey, Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, JWT, Ogilvy Group, TNS, Young & Rubicam, and Cohn & Wolfe.
About The Good Search
A top retained executive search firm in the greater New York City area, The Good Search has developed an investigative approach that makes executive search smarter. Founded by an award-winning TV journalist and investigative reporter, we harness the power of data to deliver exceptional results. The Good Search offers three points of difference: candidates you never dreamed existed for game-changing hires; flat fees that eliminate conflicts of interest, and we hand over all the candidate research, which you can use to make additional hires at no additional cost.
