Leo Burnett Names Suzanne Michaels EVP, Creative Innovation

Today, Suzanne Michaels was named executive vice president of creative innovation at Leo Burnett and Arc. Michaels joins from The Abundancy, which was recently acquired by Leo Burnett.

“The best work is the result of collaboration between creative, strategy and media,” said Britt Nolan, Leo Burnett USA chief creative officer. “Suzanne is a great creative talent and collaborator who has proven expertise in driving digital innovation. I’m thrilled to partner with her.”

Michaels will oversee creative innovation across both Leo Burnett and Arc’s portfolio, helping to further develop department-wide expertise in data-driven creativity and experience design.

"Leo Burnett is a stellar creative agency, and I want to be its benevolent provocateur—to cultivate a spirit of experimentation and the permission to simply try,” said Michaels. “In a world of continuous change, we can’t know what’s beyond the horizon. But there’s tremendous freedom in being brave enough to stand at the precipice and jump."

Michaels will report into Nolan and join the agency’s leadership team to help operationalise the HumanKind approach throughout the creative process, as well as help drive overall organic growth and new business.

“Suzanne helped originate The Abundancy’s agency vision, which is now the goal of our HumanKind operating system at Leo Burnett: to help brands get chosen,” said Andrew Swinand, Leo Burnett North America CEO. “I couldn’t be more proud and excited to keep working with Suzanne to advance Leo Burnett’s creative product with forward-thinking, data-driven communications and technology.”

At The Abundancy, Michaels oversaw the revolution of U.S. Cellular acquisition efforts, which covered everything from advertising to customer experience design. She also continues to lead the creative partnership with Lincoln Park Zoo. Previously, she worked at BBDO, Critical Mass, Digitas, JWT and DDB.