DDB San Francisco, part of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC), has hired Whitney Ball as a VP and head of talent. She brings more than 20 years of executive human resources experience to DDB San Francisco and is a key addition to the agency’s leadership team. In her new role, Ball will be responsible for leading the agency’s strategic human resources and recruitment efforts, talent operations, and culture development. Ball will report to DDB San Francisco chief operations officer Valerie Bengoa.
For the last nine years Ball has been a human resources consultant, helping companies in a broad range of sectors design and to implement people strategies, solutions, and programs that align with each unique organization’s business needs. She has worked with a number of different Bay Area agencies varying in size and specialty, including Camp+King, BOCA Communications, Jack Morton, and Voice Box Creative.
In addition to being a consultant, Ball was VP, human resources, at EVB, where she was responsible for building and designing the HR infrastructure for the agency. Prior to that, Ball spent 12 years at Young & Rubicam (Y&R). She began in Y&R’s New York office and was later tapped to oversee HR at Y&R’s San Francisco office. After two years, Ball’s role expanded, and she became the HR leader and business partner responsible for HR services for Y&R San Francisco, Wunderman, and Mediaedge:CIA.
Ball’s hire follows DDB San Francisco’s announcement that Ben Wolan has joined the agency as executive creative director. Additionally, the San Francisco office has expanded client relationships with Symantec to include both the LifeLock and Norton consumer businesses, and recently won a new project for Energy Upgrade California, the multimillion-dollar statewide initiative.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More