Publicis Groupe today announced that it has named Pete Stein, currently President of Razorfish East, to serve as CEO of Razorfish Worldwide. He replaces Bob Lord, who has taken a new role with AOL Networks. Shannon Denton, currently President of the Central US Division of Razorfish, will become CEO of Razorfish USA. Rishad Tobaccowala becomes Chair of Razorfish and DigitasLBi, providing strategic direction to the digital agencies while also working with VivaKi CEO Frank Voris to activate technology and build digital products for Publicis Groupe through cross-agency collaboration.
“Under Bob’s leadership, Razorfish has become one of the world’s largest interactive marketing and technology companies, and among Bob’s many contributions to the Groupe is the significant depth of talent and leadership he nurtured as CEO,” said Maurice Lévy, CEO of Publicis Groupe. “Promoting Pete Stein and Shannon Denton to executive leadership roles creates a seamless transition thanks to their digital acumen and entrepreneurial spirit they have delivered to their clients, global staff and to Publicis Groupe. Having Rishad serve as Chair provides strategic oversight and creates a synergy that allows us to optimize the investments we are making in technology and the development of the next generation solutions that our clients need to stay connected to digitally empowered consumers.”
The new appointments reinforce Publicis Groupe’s commitment to be a leader in digital marketing, and to build products and platforms that enable its agencies and their clients to navigate the multiple digital devices that dominate consumer attention. Having launched and scaled such successful products as Audience On Demand®, Fluent and CRM365, the Groupe’s leading digital agencies — Razorfish, VivaKi and DigitasLBi — are adept at building cutting-edge digital solutions, including next-generation storytelling capabilities, pipelines and distribution systems, technology and software services and data capture and management systems.