The anatomy of an agency chief client officer

"Andrea Timmerman, global chief client officer at media agency Assembly, heads out from her Minneapolis, Minn. base to the agency's offices and those of its clients in Singapore, Dubai, London and New York between two and four times a month. "I'm a strong believer of [being] in person and being with people, with our team and our clients. It's about more than just the business, it's understanding them as individuals as well," she said."

"A Havas veteran of 17 years, Greene suggested the rising profile of the role was a consequence of a boardroom course correction. "There's a bit of a gap at an executive level of someone or people who are severely and purely focused on the needs of the client," she said. Amid a growth in project-based work taken on by creative agencies, CCOs are tasked with maturing client relationships from month-long flirtations into the decade-spanning retainers that underpin agency business models."

Chief client officer roles have proliferated across media and creative agencies as firms elevate executives focused exclusively on client needs. Andrea Timmerman travels frequently from Minneapolis to global offices and client sites to foster in-person relationships. Executives at WPP, Omnicom, Starcom, Dentsu and Havas occupy similar CCO posts. Agencies including The Martin Agency, Neverland and Uncommon also appointed CCOs. The role addresses a boardroom gap by concentrating on client service and relationship longevity. CCOs work to convert short project engagements into long-term retainers amid growing project-based agency work and rising complexity of large media accounts.

Read at Digiday