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Just weeks after DDB Worldwide announced its global CCO Ari Weiss was leaving to start his own agency, DDB has picked up a lauded creative, naming Chaka Sobhani as president, CCO International at DDB Worldwide.
Sobhani was most recently global CCO at Leo Burnett, based in London. At DDB, Sobhani will report to Alex Lubar, DDB Worldwide global CEO, working with the DDB global leadership team to help build on its creative legacy. According to DDB, Sobhani will not start for six months.
Lubar called Sobhani a true leader who inspires and deeply understands the people and clients she works with.
“Her energy is infectious, her drive is relentless, and her dedication to delivering outstanding creative product for her clients is unquestionable,” said Lubar in a statement, describing her as the kind of leader that drives employees to do everything better and will raise the bar of its creative product.
Leo Burnett named Sobhani global CCO in 2021, and before that was CCO of Leo Burnett London. Before Leo Burnett, Sobhani was at Mother London. She has worked with brands including McDonalds, where she headed up the creative on the award-winning “Raise your Arches” and “Lights On” campaigns, plus Coca Cola, Google, Kelloggs, Samsung, Boots, Skoda, Disney, AXA, Morrisons, P&G, General Motors and Adidas, among many others.
Mark Elwood has been appointed chief creative officer for Leo Burnett U.K., effective immediately.
Prior to her agency work, Sobhani spent over a decade as an award-winning filmmaker and television creative executive. She set up ITV’s first in-house creative agency and helped the network regain the top position in the U.K. Before that, she created branding and advertising for Fox, helping to launch the network’s children channels across Europe and the Middle East.
Sobhani was named to Adweek’s Creative 100 in 2021. She is highly awarded in all the major shows and has also served as jury member and president numerous times at Cannes, D&AD, One Show, the Andy’s, Art Directors Club, Eurobest, Clios, LIA’s, the IPA, the Creative Circle and the British Arrows.
Sobhani will be based out of DDB’s European headquarters in London and will partner with Rick Brim, global CCO of adam&eve DDB. DDB has made several big changes recently, most notably that DDB New York merged with adam&eveNYC to form a new creative agency called adam&eveDDB, with former Digitas president Caroline Winterton as its new CEO.
“We wish Chaka all the very best in her new role and thank her for her contribution to Leo London’s success. We are fortunate to have great strength in depth in our creative department and will be announcing our plans very shortly,” said Charlie Rudd, group CEO, Leo Burnett UK, Publicis Poke.
