David Kenny’s next stop after Publicis VivaKi is Akamai where he’ll become President. According to a press release, he will be “responsible for leading Akamai’s business operations, including the company’s product groups; global sales, services, and marketing; engineering; and networks and operations.” Akamai adds an agency player and former CEO of Digitas to its exec ranks (Kenny has been on the Akamai board since 2007). The plot thickens! Read the release.
This is a bold move by Akamai as it potentially expands beyond its e-Commerce marketer comfort zone and starts courting agency dollars.
The Agency Migration
Agency execs continue to migrate to tech companies as noted today on AdExchanger.com by former OMG exec John Donahue. Is there a new agency on the horizon where tech is the underpinning? Today’s agencies don’t think so and I don’t blame them considering the culture which plods within. But what if tech re-modeled the agency with former agency types in the lead to manage the relationships? Exciting!
Next big step: ad tech companies take their valuable stock and start buying agencies who have much less valuable stock. Layer the agency and its clients on top of the ad tech company. Even more exciting!
Read the Feb. 2010 AdExchanger.com Q&A with David Kenny when he was at VivaKi.
Read the Wall Street Journal’s article on Kenny’s new role at Akamai.
