Jacki Kelley Joins Bloomberg Media
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Jacki Kelley has joined Bloomberg Media as chief operating officer for Media, responsible for leading the business operations of Bloomberg’s worldwide multi-platform media operation, which includes web, mobile, television, digital video, radio, print magazines and live events.
Kelley will serve as deputy to Justin Smith, Bloomberg Media CEO, across the Media Group and focus on driving global revenue growth, brand strength, and developing the company’s multi-platform media offerings. She will start on Sept.1/14, based out of Bloomberg LP’s global headquarters in New York City.
With more than 20 years of experience, Kelley is widely credited with disrupting traditional business models to successfully meet client objectives across the publishing and advertising industries. She recently served as CEO for IPG Mediabrands North America and president of Global Clients, dedicating all of her time to leading IPG’s successful bid for all of Microsoft’s creative and deployment work globally. Kelley has helped lead a massive expansion of IPG’s global advertising network, which now buys $36 billion in media for clients, including ExxonMobil, Sony and BMW.
“This is a coup for our organization and an important talent milestone as we implement our new strategy,” says Smith. “Jacki is a force of nature – a perfect a mix of shrewd business acumen and creativity with a clear track record of success. Adding a leader of this caliber is major step towards our goal: building the leading, next-generation global business media company. Over the last few months, we’ve had a steady stream of top talent join the strong team already here at Bloomberg to implement this new vision.”
“There is an insatiable and magnetic ambition at Bloomberg,” says Kelley. “After looking at what is being built in the media operation here, I realized it’s one of those rare opportunities where if I did not do it, I may wonder what I missed. The opportunity for Bloomberg to take advantage of all the change in the industry is immense. Justin has laid out a bold plan to do just that, and I feel really fortunate to help lead the team making the vision a reality.”
Kelley has been honored multiple times. She was named a Matrix Award Honoree by New York Women in Communications; Advertising Woman of the Year by the Advertising Women of New York; and was inducted into the American Advertising Federation Hall of Achievement. She was named one of Crain’s New York Business’s 50 Most Powerful Women in New York in 2013, one Advertising Age’s 100 Most Influential Women in Advertising and was number one on Business Insider’s 30 Most Powerful Women in Advertising list.
In her role as CEO, IPG Mediabrands North America, she oversaw and integrated tools, technologies and services for all clients based in North America and across the IPG Mediabrands agencies, including Universal McCann, Initiative and bpn, and was responsible for global clients headquartered in North America. Previously, Kelley served as president, North America and global CEO at Universal McCann, where she helped lead a transformation of the agency, including the introduction of a pay-for-performance model, that led to a major expansion in client base and revenue. Kelley will remain in her current role at IPG through the summer, in order to ensure a smooth transition on certain accounts.
Previously, Kelley held various business roles at Yahoo!, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and USA TODAY. At Yahoo!, Kelley served as global head of strategy and solutions, where she oversaw the integration of the search and display sales teams into an enhanced sales force. She integrated four sales forces into one while in the role of executive vice- president media sales at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
She started her career at USA TODAY, where she rose from an intern to senior vice-president of advertising, overseeing advertising and marketing for all international and domestic editions of the newspaper. In the late 1980s, Kelley was a part of the team that led USA TODAY’s hotel distribution, an innovative marketing strategy at the time that greatly increased the paper’s influence and advertising proposition.
Kelley is the most recent addition in a series of high-profile structural changes in Bloomberg’s consumer media operation, which began with naming Smith CEO of Bloomberg Media Group in July 2013. Since he started in September, Smith led a rapid review of Bloomberg’s entire consumer media operation and detailed a bold, aggressive new strategy going forward. The strategy aims to build the leading, next generation media company for global business by concentrating on the development of a series of digitally-led, multi-platform new brands and broadening Bloomberg’s core audience beyond its traditional finance roots.
A steady stream of top talent has joined Bloomberg to help execute the new strategy, including former Atlantic Media executive Zazie Lucke joining as head of global marketing in October and Paul Marcum, GE’s former director of global digital marketing and programming, joining in December to become head of global digital video. Leading digital talent Nathan Richardson and former Gawker and Atlantic Wire editor Gabriel Snyder have been named to oversee the creation and launch of the new brands, which are at the core of Bloomberg’s new direction. In May, Bloomberg announced one of the first new brands it will launch – Bloomberg Politics – which will be led by two of the nation’s preeminent political journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.
Further, Bloomberg’s overseas media operations were restructured recently to reflect the company’s major global media ambitions by appointing regional leadership for the first time with oversight over all media operations. Former Guardian executive Adam Freeman joined as the first Managing Director of Bloomberg Media for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Parry Ravindranathan was promoted to be the first Managing Director of Bloomberg Media for Asia-Pacific. Advertising executive Paul Caine, who previously directed revenue efforts in at Time Inc., has begun work as Bloomberg Media’s global chief revenue officer.
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