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Cheil Worldwide is expanding Joe Maglio’s leadership duties, naming him CEO of Barbarian and giving him the newly created role of president, Cheil North America. He’ll continue to lead Cheil-owned <a class="omnitrack inline-paragraph-link" href="https://adage.com/article/special-report-agency-list-creativity-awards/best-agencies-2024-mckinney/2542906" data-omnilocation="articlebody" data-omnilink="editorial-link">McKinney,</a> the agency where he has been CEO since 2018.
At Barbarian, Maglio replaces Steven Moy, who had been the digital agency’s CEO for the last five years and last week became the first-ever <a class="omnitrack inline-paragraph-link" href="https://adage.com/article/agency-brief/agency-news-you-need-know-week-march-15-2024/2546601" data-omnilocation="articlebody" data-omnilink="editorial-link">CEO of L&amp;C.</a>
With this fusion of roles, Maglio aims to find a way for Cheil’s agencies in North America to work more closely together on pitches and work to open the company up to larger opportunities.
“There are opportunities that, frankly go beyond McKinney’s capabilities,” Maglio said. “McKinney is a full-service agency. But there are opportunities out there that require other types of skill sets, or even just a bigger scale, where we’d want to bring some of the agencies together.”
<h4 style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 2.5rem;margin-bottom:20px;">Not merging agencies</h4>
Cheil Worldwide is the 10th largest agency holding company in the world, according to <a class="omnitrack inline-paragraph-link" href="https://adage.com/article/datacenter/agency-report-2023-biggest-companies/2481051" data-omnilocation="articlebody" data-omnilink="editorial-link">Ad Age’s Datacenter.</a> In 2023 the holding company posted $3.3 billion in revenue, with $274 million of that coming from the U.S.
Cheil North America has more than 800 employees across 14 offices spanning four agencies: Barbarian, production company CYLNDR, integrated agency Iris North America, and McKinney. It also includes three Cheil-branded offices in New York, Dallas and Canada. Key clients across the network include Adidas, American Express, Barclay, Bentley, Estee Lauder, Hulu, IHG, Little Caesars, MLS, PayPal, <a class="omnitrack inline-paragraph-link" href="https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/see-popeyes-first-ad-mckinney-being-named-aor/2490861" data-omnilocation="articlebody" data-omnilink="editorial-link">Popeyes</a>, and Samsung.
Maglio confirmed that he is looking to get to a point where all the New York offices of the agencies in Cheil North America will all “sit together” in the near future. Campus models have become more popular at other holding companies, such as WPP, Havas, and Stagwell. <a class="omnitrack inline-paragraph-link" href="https://www.wpp.com/en/news/2023/09/wpp-opens-the-doors-to-a-new-campus-in-paris#:~:text=The%20WPP%20Paris%20Campus%20has,ideas%2C%20allowing%20creativity%20to%20flourish." data-omnilocation="articlebody" data-omnilink="editorial-link">WPP</a> has opened several campus model office spaces over the past few years where one building houses multiple agencies.
However, this won’t lead to any mergers, Maglio said.
“These brands in North America really can and should stand up on their own,” Maglio said. “There’s not any real consideration to pushing any of the brands together. We’ve seen that obviously with other big holding companies. But that’s not something we&#8217;re thinking about here.”
Another challenge is changing perceptions of Cheil. The holding company was founded in 1973 by Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul to service the electronics giant. Samsung remains the holding company’s largest client, but it has expanded with other clients and a U.S. presence thanks to agencies such as McKinney and Barbarian. However, there are still a few perceptions that Cheil hopes to change, especially in the U.S.
“Cheil can often get two labels put on it. One is that Cheil is global and there’s less of a recognition that there’s a North American region that is run separately,” Maglio said. “The one that I hear more often than not is that Cheil means Samsung. It does to some degree. It’s a massive agency partner for Samsung around the world. But when we say Cheil North America, that needs to mean a lot more. It needs to mean all of the capabilities that McKinney and Barbarian and so on bring to the table.”
<h4 style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 2.5rem;margin-bottom:20px;">Barbarian’s ‘brand lift’</h4>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-1606 size-full" style="max-width: 100%;height:auto;" src="https://wearebarbarian.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240315_Barbarian_Jo_Henry_Vince_3x2.webp" alt="" width="660" height="440" srcset="https://wearebarbarian.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240315_Barbarian_Jo_Henry_Vince_3x2.webp 660w, https://wearebarbarian.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/20240315_Barbarian_Jo_Henry_Vince_3x2-300x200.webp 300w" sizes="(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px" /> 
Barbarian’s existing senior leadership includes <a href="https://adage.com/article/agency-news/barbarian-hires-vince-lim-chief-creative-officer/2493281">Vince Lim,</a> chief creative officer; Henry Fernandez, executive director of business development and marketing; and Jo Hayes, director of data insights and analytics.
Maglio said he is looking to hire for several roles at Barbarian. He is bringing on another executive, whom he declined to name.
Barbarian currently has 75 employees. Along with Samsung, it does work for clients including American Express, HubSpot and JBL. It handles work in areas such as digital experience design, platform-driven communications (such as social media or advertising on Spotify) and emerging tech and innovation.
Maglio admitted that Barbarian “needs a brand lift” and he intends to help market the agency more than it had been promoted in the past.
He pointed to Barbarian’s 2022 <a class="omnitrack inline-paragraph-link" href="https://clios.com/awards/winner/fashion-beauty/fenty-beauty/fenty-eau-de-parfum-ghost-stores-launch-110740" data-omnilocation="articlebody" data-omnilink="editorial-link">Clio award-winning work for Fenty Beauty</a> as an example of the agency’s potential to create innovative work for brands.
“When I think about the way that Barbarian works, especially with [American Express and Samsung], there’s so much more that they can be doing,” Maglio said. “It’s just the brand just hadn’t been out there.”
McKinney has been a bright spot for the Cheil network. Since Maglio took over as CEO more than five years ago, the agency has tripled in size, to nearly 400 employees. The shop also won two of its biggest clients under Maglio’s tenure, Little Caesars in 2019 and Popeyes in 2023—and <a href="https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/little-caesars-hails-its-delivery-best-thing-sliced-bread-super-bowl-debut/2231146">took each one of them</a> to <a href="https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/watch-popeyes-super-bowl-ad-ken-jeong-hungry-chicken-wings/2540281">the Super Bowl.</a>
Other key McKinney clients include Blue Diamond, Choice Hotels, Kroger and Microsoft. The agency has also launched a health practice <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mckinney-acquires-august-united-a-leading-influencer-marketing-agency-301730645.html">and acquired</a> influencer agency August United and performance agency Tailwind. Earlier this year McKinney appointed <a href="https://adage.com/article/agency-news/mckinneys-new-president-influencer-strategy-and-health-and-wellness-practice/2498681">Gretchen Walsh as president.</a>
This will be the largest remit of Maglio’s career and with three positions Maglio recognizes he will need to divide his time. He said he plans to “lean a little bit more” into his role at Barbarian and look to existing executives at different agencies to continue leading their shops.

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