Saatchi & Saatchi New York has announced the appointment of Claudine Cheever as Executive Vice President, Director of Strategic Planning. She will report to Mary Baglivo, CEO at Saatchi & Saatchi New York; CEO & Chair Americas. Cheever was previously Executive Vice President, Executive Planning Director at McCann Worldgroup in San Francisco.
Baglivo notes: “Claudine is a tremendous talent who has a brilliant planning mind, cutting edge creativity and an inspirational leadership style. We really look forward to partnering with her to bring great ideas to our clients and business development prospects.”
Cheever comments: “I’m so excited for this new adventure. I love Mary and Gerry’s approach to our business as well as their ability to inspire and lead. They’ve set the tone at Saatchi & Saatchi as an entrepreneurial, strategic, fast-moving place where it’s all about doing great work on great brands.”
Claudine began her career in publishing, but shortly thereafter moved into marketing and found a niche in the “young adult” books category, working on content for teens.
She got her first official planning job at Ogilvy and Mather, where she worked on Motorola and Mattel’s Barbie brand.
During the next five years at Goodby, Claudine rose through ranks to Deputy Director of the planning department, catalyzing the rebirth of planning at that agency, department growth from 8 to 42 planners, and developing ways for the two halves of the integrated media-and-strategy department to work better together. She oversaw planning on Comcast, Saturn, the agency’s Frito Lay business, and was a key new business planning lead with wins on Comcast, Doritos, and Sprint under her belt.
Claudine joined McCann’s San Francisco office in August 2008 and during her tenure there worked with new creative leadership to research, define and execute a new brand identity for the agency, led some of the agency’s successful new business pitches, and helped create a “pitch” process that was described by senior clients as a “home run.”