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In its 105th year of operation, Grey Group continues the transformation of its C-Suite, naming Laura Maness the agency’s global CEO.
Maness joins from Havas, where she led the agency as the New York CEO, and previously held U.S. chief growth officer and managing director of Chicago roles at the agency. She becomes just the sixth CEO in Grey history and the first woman to attain the role.
Grey, which merged in 2020 with AKQA, has undergone significant upheaval within its leadership team over the past six weeks. Former CEO Michael Houston switched roles within WPP to become the holding company’s first North America president. Earlier this month, two of its top creatives, global creative chairman John Patroulis and New York CCO Justine Armour, left the agency for personal reasons. Debby Reiner, who served as the global client lead for Grey Worldwide and global client lead for the P&G account, retired. She was replaced by Stacey Shelly on the P&G account and Jason Kahner took on the global client lead role. Ecd Andre Gray recently left for a chief creative officer role at Annex88, a Havas agency.
But that upheaval presents Maness with opportunity.
“One of my favorite quotes is ‘every day is a chance to begin again,'” Maness told Adweek. “And this really is a new beginning.”
Maness, who AKQA Group CEO Ajaz Ahmed described as “entrepreneurial, dynamic and energetic,” will begin her role on Sept. 1. Grey will also launch a new website with a fresh look on Aug. 1.
“Having built a culture of camaraderie, creativity, innovation, meaning and impact at Havas, Laura is the right person to lead the revolution on a significantly larger canvas: that of Grey globally,” Ahmed told Adweek.
Why Grey
It’s not every day that a 105-year-old agency with just five prior CEOs is looking for a new leader, and so Maness views it as an incredible opportunity “to galvanize and grow such a storied and celebrated ad agency like Grey.”
At Havas, Maness said the agency embraced borderless creativity, which she strives to amplify at Grey. “One of the biggest opportunities that excites me is to bring people together globally across the network and to be able to unlock even greater value for clients.”
The resilience of the agency also appealed to Maness, especially as the industry enters a challenging period ahead with a potential economic downturn looming. “You don’t celebrate 105 years without having an incredible ability to bounce back,” Maness said. “There’s been a lot of change, but it’s stood the test of time.”
Right now is one of those periods of great change at Grey thanks to the significant departures at the top of the agency. Maness will be tasked with steering the Grey ship through these choppy waters and rebuilding the company’s creative leadership following the departures of Patroulis, Armour and Gray.
She said she pitched herself to Grey as a leader who wants to instill a values-led growth culture, while scaling their collective impact, and argued she has a track record for doing so after taking Havas through the B-Corp certification.
“Laura believes in the power of what we do to make a difference in the world, and has an impressive track record of delivering growth for agencies, their people and their clients,” said Mark Read, CEO of WPP. “Grey is known for outstanding creativity that produces outstanding results, and I’m sure that reputation will only grow under Laura’s leadership.”
Sustainability at the forefront
Maness led Havas New York’s quest to become B-Corp certified in 2021. The shop is still one of the largest agency offices in the world to attain the certification. Maness said the pursuit of certification brings with a measurable framework that all businesses can benefit from, even if they aren’t pursuing certification.
While the sustainability initiatives are certainly a key pillar of the assessment, Maness said the larger goal is to use business as a force for good and give employees a meaningful experience. That can be through greater pay transparency, benefits and relationships with the whole supply chain from the workers to clients and communities businesses serve.
Maness’ goal is to make Greys’ values very clear to employees to ensure “everyone is empowered to contribute and make decisions that hold each other accountable and hold ourselves to the highest standards when it comes to social and environmental impact.”
She sees sustainability showing up in more briefs, and looks at it as a huge growth area for agencies. Maness wants Grey “to role model the kinds of behaviors that we want our clients to embrace that are going to have a greater impact.”
