Leo Burnett Worldwide Names Mark Blears Account Head for McDonald's

Mark Blears, currently APMEA regional account director for McDonald’s at Leo Burnett will be relocating from Tokyo to Chicago to assume the role of worldwide account head on the brand effective mid-September 2014. Blears’ APMEA regional account director role will be succeeded by Neil Hudspeth, currently Chief Digital Officer, Leo Burnett Asia Pacific; while his Japan leadership responsibilities will be taken over by Greg Jones, most recently with Suite Partners. 

Jarek Ziebinski, president, Leo Burnett Asia Pacific said,” The promotion of Mark to the global account leadership of the McDonald’s business is a wonderful recognition of his achievements and outstanding work. With Mark’s deep understanding and knowledge of the business, he is an ideal candidate to lead the agency to help grow the McDonald’s brand to greater success.” 

Blears’ distinctive 25-year Leo Burnett career is highlighted by his 20 years of McDonald's experience, where he successfully led the business in various roles based in the USA, Europe and most recently as APMEA Regional Account Director. Blears has also served as a professor at the renowned Worldwide Hamburger Marketing University, also known as the Harvard of the fast food industry, four times. In his new role, Blears will report directly to Tom Bernardin, chairman and CEO, Leo Burnett Worldwide. 

Continued Ziebinski,” Neil’s unique background across digital, brand, integrated creative agencies coupled with his extensive experience working on the McDonald’s business as chief digital officer across Asia Pacific over the last few years set up him well as the successor of the APMEA leadership role for the brand. With digital being one of McDonald’s key focus as a company, the decision to appoint our top digital leadership in the region to lead the business reinforces our commitment to be McDonald’s best creative partner in delivering on their brand ambitions.” 

Blears’ APMEA regional account director’s role will now be assumed by Neil Hudspeth in combination with his responsibilities as Leo Burnett’s chief digital officer – Asia Pacific. Born in Malaysia, Hudspeth’s career includes founding and leading digital, brand and integrated creative agencies across four continents. Hudspeth has a solid track record of work successfully created for a spectrum of clients including McDonald's, P&G, Coca Cola, and Samsung. Based out of Singapore, Hudspeth will continue to report to Ziebinski in his new expanded role, effective September, 2014. 

Replacing Blears in Tokyo in leading the McDonald's Japan account will be Greg Jones. McDonald's has been central to Jones’ 11 years at Leo Burnett earlier. He served three years in South Africa and eight years on the 500+ restaurant Chicagoland Co-Op account, where Jones was a key strategic driver of business plans and helped deliver a raft of award-winning creative work. Jones is returning to Leo Burnett following a three and a half year stint as managing director at Suite Partners, a social media activation company. In his new role, effective August 4th, Jones will report to Nicolas Menat, president, representative director, Beacon/Leo Burnett Tokyo.