Leo Burnett Chicago has hired Kate Jeffers as chief executive officer, effective May 15. Jeffers will oversee Leo Burnett’s flagship Chicago office and operations, and the agency’s brand partnerships including Bank of America, Beam Suntory, Kellogg’s, Molson Coors, Nintendo and Tillamook. She will relocate to Chicago, reporting to Publicis Groupe Creative U.S. CEO Susie Nam.
“I’ve long admired Leo Burnett for its bold creative ambition, driven by a longstanding belief that what helps people, helps business,” said Jeffers. “Few agencies have a 90-year track record of consistently innovating to build brands at mass scale, to activate audiences, and to impact culture. I’m honored and excited to work alongside Leo Burnett’s incredible team and clients to seize our existing momentum and amplify our advantages.”
Jeffers joins Leo Burnett after two decades at Venables Bell + Partners (VB+P), the independent creative agency best known for its work on brands including Audi, Chipotle, Intel, Reebok and REI. She most recently served as partner and president, overseeing the agency’s long-term vision and day-to-day operations, and working alongside its leadership to ensure inspired people, clients, and creative work. While at VB+P, Jeffers helped lead the agency to significant growth via new business and the diversification of its offering, with capabilities in experience design, integrated production, retail, and issue/advocacy marketing. She was also pivotal to the agency’s early adoption of AI, leading the launch of its AI consultancy, BRAIVE, as well as multiple equity investments in AI start-ups.
Previously, Jeffers spent time at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles and Paris, TBWA\Chiat\Day and Goodby Silverstein & Partners, working across categories on significant brands and initiatives, including launching both the Apple iPod and Toyota Prius.
“Kate is a creative driven leader who exemplifies the values of a Burnetter,” said Britt Nolan, chief creative officer, Leo Burnett Chicago. “She is a natural fit to accelerate how we continue to put people first, lead in the market, and build around delivering inspired work and making an impact for our clients.”
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More