Goodby Silverstein & Partners Appoints Christine Chen as Chief Strategy Officer

Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P) has announced the appointment of Christine Chen as chief strategy officer (CSO). A seasoned leader in brand and communication strategy, who has been at GS&P since 2004, Christine will drive GS&P’s strategic vision, ensuring that it continues to develop culturally resonant, insight-driven creative work that delivers measurable, transformative business impact for brands.

“At GS&P, strategy isn’t a department—it’s a creative force,” said Margaret Johnson, chief creative officer at GS&P. “Christine is one of those rare thinkers who doesn’t just answer the brief; she reframes it. She pushes brands and teams to go further to make work that actually moves people. She understands that great strategy is both of the moment and built to last. This ultimately leads to fame-making work that works.”

In her new role, Christine will focus on deepening GS&P’s strategic approach and uniting the agency’s three strategy disciplines—brand, communication and consumer insight—under a single future-focused vision that her team of strategists in San Francisco and New York will execute against. This will extend beyond advertising, helping brands navigate an expanding landscape of consumer touchpoints. The goal will be to ensure that strategy fuels client success by driving breakthrough, participatory and meaningful ideas that connect brands to culture in powerful ways.

“Our secret sauce—true since the founding of the agency over 40 years ago—is knowing how to create strategies that solve real problems and activate ideas and culture,” said Christine. “At GS&P, strategy has always been about making people feel something and compelling them to act. Solving problems for not just the brand but addressing how the brand can solve problems for people. My focus will be on ensuring that strategy is bold, clear and connected to real-world impact—not just in advertising, but across every touchpoint where brands show up.”

Christine brings extensive experience in brand transformation, creative strategy and consumer behaviour to the role. Early in her tenure at GS&P, Christine pioneered action-driving brand platforms that welcomed participation from consumers, like Häagen-Dazs “Loves Honey Bees.” Her focus on enduring brand strategy and innovative uses of media, technology and culture impacted brands as diverse as Adobe, Doritos, Xfinity and “got milk?” Christine has also influenced platforms like “Life Below Water,” a partnership between Google and the UN that used YouTube’s sequential ad format and narration from Morgan Freeman to show how, by the year 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. She was a finalist for AdAge’s Chief Strategy Officer of the Year Award in 2021.

Under Christine’s leadership, GS&P will continue its strength in guiding clients in high-level strategic thinking through its Brand Camp offering—immersive, guided workshops designed to create internal alignment around strategic fundamentals, starting with the problem the brand solves for people. Most recently, GS&P conducted Brand Camps for Brown-Forman and other brands.

In collaboration with GS&P’s head of inclusion and impact, Dr. Jennifer Gomes, Christine co-created Supercharged, which is GS&P’s agency-wide approach for removing bias and unearthing the stories of the people with whom we want to connect. One of the results was the agency’s 2024 Doritos Super Bowl spot, “Dina and Mita,” which Ad Age named as one of the best campaigns driven by DEI. The ANA Multicultural Excellence Awards also named it Best in Show.

“Christine is a forward thinker. She saw the opportunity for purpose-driven brand building before it was popular and has helped win some of GS&P’s biggest pitches, including BMW and General Mills,” said Leslie Barrett, president of GS&P. “As brands navigate a challenging business context in an increasingly complex and fragmented media landscape, Christine’s leadership will ensure that GS&P continues to innovate at the intersection of culture, consumer behaviour and business growth.”

Christine’s promotion comes at a momentous time for the agency as it added General Mills, Zaxbys, Empower and Brown-Forman to its roster to account for a 50% increase in new business revenue in 2024 versus 2023. On the heels of these wins, the agency’s presence in NYC has grown significantly. 2025, the agency unveiled Super Bowl spots like Mountain Dew’s spot starring Seal and Doritos’s “Abduction.” In recent weeks it launched new work for Zaxbys introducing the Sauce Boss, Omar Epps; a MINI campaign calling out competitors’ taglines at the New York Auto Show; and Elephants on Horseback Salad, a film that used Google Veo 2 to bring back Salvador Dalí’s lost film.