Some observers in the industry were unconvinced he would be able to master the complexity that comes with overseeing the U.S. and Canadian operations of some of the biggest media agencies out there, including Mindshare, Mediacom, Essence and Wavemaker. Internally, some folks were surprised and skeptical of his hire, and outsiders doubted that selling media prepared one to run the biggest media agency network. The knock was, he’s a nice guy and a great sales person with a good handle on ad-tech, but no way is he prepared to take on GroupM.

One year in, and McDonald is only too happy to still the voices of the naysayers. To his mind, flipping his body of knowledge to apply to the buying side of the business was exactly what was needed. Just as he flips the sides of a Rubik’s cube when he’s deep in thought to get six evenly colored sides.

“It just feels like the industry is going through like this growth spurt moment, and to actually change the lens through which I look at this was too tempting an opportunity,” said McDonald, 54, who hits his one-year anniversary in just a few weeks. “I’ve spent the better part of almost three decades looking at it through the lens of the content creating platforms and environment, and I spent a good deal of time looking at it through the technologists and how they create the pipes of the industry and programmatic. Now, this is an opportunity — with a deep understanding of the pipes, through the perspective of what has shifted on the content creation side — to be part of how the buyers think about it and advise them.”

“Although he might not have been the usual suspect for an agency role, the skillset and perspective he has was absolutely applicable,” said Adam Gerhart, global CEO of Mindshare. “It’s provided a different vantage point than someone who’s grown up or only worked in an agency their whole life.”

The work ahead

Given his belief that nothing is fundamentally broken at GroupM, McDonald has focused most of his energies on trying to improve various elements of the network, including shoring up diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts as part of his “responsible investment” strategy, maintaining the distinction of the individual brands that make up GroupM, and communicating to WPP leadership the importance of the media side of the business. An English major who attended City College of New York, he’s apparently doing a good job getting the …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron