McCann Worldgroup Appoints New Global President to Lead Craft

McCann Worldgroup today announced the appointment of Lalita Koehler to global president, Craft, the network's global creative production agency. Craft specialises in content creation, digital, print, broadcast, and transcreation with over 1,300 makers across 120 countries. 

The executive hire illustrates the network’s continued investment in creativity and world-class talent at a time of accelerated innovation and creative renaissance in production and in the industry at large. Last month McCann Worldgroup announced a new strategic partnership with [Ai]magination, a leading AI content production studio.

A 20+ year veteran, Lalita makes the move to Craft from Publicis Groupe where she has been chief production officer, Publicis Productions (PXP) since 2021. At Publicis she led multiple modernization efforts to centralise business units, create centres of creative excellence, drive connectivity across content hubs, and to implement real-time production dashboards for employees and clients.

Prior to that, Lalita was head of production & chief operating officer at Saatchi & Saatchi, Los Angeles from 2015 to 2023, overseeing Toyota. Her work on Toyota’s “Start Your Impossible” campaign for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Games was honoured with over 100 awards, including Cannes Lions and Effies.

Her brand experience also includes Yahoo!, Dom Pérignon, Myspace, AT&T, Walmart, Ubisoft, and Apple among others.

“During this pivotal moment in our industry, with most conversations circling around technology, it is more important than ever to bring the right talent into our organisation, people with the skills and the passion to keep pushing the creative product in every field. Lalita Koehler has all the qualities, vision and experience to run our production unit CRAFT. We have crossed paths in the past, and we share an optimistic and ambitious vision of the role of production right now and for the future. I’m so looking forward to working with Lalita again.” said Javier Campopiano, global chief creative officer, McCann Worldgroup and McCann.

"McCann Worldgroup and Craft are focused on bringing Creativity to life in ways that are truly unique in the industry. This opportunity merges all my experience and passion to innovate into one global role. From the beginning I fell in love with the Craft vision,” said Lalita.

Daryl Lee, global chief executive officer of McCann Worldgroup said, "Lalita is a world-class leader in creative production with an impressive track record and depth of experience. Her career embodies Craft’s promise to bring ‘Creativity to life’ using all the methods and leading technologies of the 21st century. We’re excited for her to join us to drive production excellence across our entire company.”

Lalita will begin her new post in early June and report into Kate MacNevin, global chief operating officer, McCann Worldgroup and global chairwoman and chief executive officer of MRM.