Azher Ahmed and Valerie Bengoa have been promoted to leadership roles for DDB in the U.S. Ahmed has been elevated to EVP, director of digital while Bengoa has been promoted to EVP, director of finance. Both will report to Paul Gunning, president and COO of DDB U.S. In these new roles, Ahmed and Bengoa will lead their respective discipline and be responsible for the team in DDB‘s three U.S. offices, Tribal New York and Rodgers Townsend. With more than 20 years of experience spearheading digital marketing, Ahmed has designed and implemented creative ideas and tech-driven campaigns for brands, including Capital One’s “Road to the Final Four” and McDonald’s “Lovin’ the Super Bowl.” In his new role, Ahmed will focus on capability connectivity across DDB U.S. offices and clients such as State Farm, Miller Lite and Symantec. He is also charged with advancing the agency network’s capabilities to ensure DDB’s talent can create for any digitally-rooted idea and execute it in today’s connected world. Bengoa has been part of the DDB team since 1998 and has worked in the Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco offices at different points in her career….
Nico Buris is joining production service company Rabagast as managing director/EP for its offices in South America which include Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. For the last 20 years he has been producing in his native Argentina as well as in Chile and Uruguay. Previously a producer at Landia, a top Spanish speaking production house, Buris has worked closely with directors on large-scale projects in the U.S., Europe and South America. Among them are collaborations with American ad agencies on projects for Coca Cola, SC Johnson and P&G. He was also a line producer at Tronco, a commercial and creative content production company where in collaboration with the U.S. production company 1st Avenue Machine his credits include Benjamin Moore for The Martin Agency, and Motorola for Droga5….
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