Major executive changes are underway at MullenLowe West as the Interpublic Group of Cos. agency installs a new president and seeks a new top creative team.

The shifts mark one of the first big moves made by MullenLowe U.S. CEO Frank Cartagena, who took on the role in November.

Jenn Wong has been appointed president of the West region, which consists of MullenLowe’s Los Angeles office, after most recently serving as the head of global brand marketing at SoundCloud. Wong has also held lead marketing roles at Curaleaf, Beats by Dre and Gap, and worked at agencies including

She replaces Javier Passerieu, who had been promoted to the role from managing director in September of last year. Passerieu did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, the office’s two executive creative directors, Carlos Alija and Laura Sampedro, resigned and will depart in May “to ensure a smooth transition,” said Sampedro.

The search for a new creative leader is ongoing and Cartagena will fill those roles as needed in the interim.

Wong was hired to help the Los Angeles office become more of a “modern marketer” for its clients, said Cartagena. While the agency has strong capabilities in PR and design, Cartagena is hoping to work more on social and digital offerings for clients for the office, which he felt had “pigeonholed” itself into doing more TV advertising.

“I saw us in danger of becoming one-dimensional, and that’s the worst place to be,” Cartagena said.

Cartagena said the goal isn’t just to do more digital work but also to explore experiential and AI solutions. He pointed to MullenLowe’s recent campaign for Change the Ref which utilized AI to create deepfake voices of gun victims, as an example of the type of modern work he wants the agency to put out.

 

“One area that I’m looking towards is how we tackle some of the innovations that are happening right now,” Cartagena said. “That’s my next order of business is how do we use AI to optimize, and I don’t mean optimize operationally,” he said. Rather the focus is on, “How do we use AI to help us out with ideas or help us make the best creative ideas in the industry?”

In the U.S. MullenLowe also has offices in Boston (its largest office) and New York (its third largest behind Los Angeles) The U.S. network overall has about 400 employees. MullenLowe West clients include Acura, Corona, Grey Goose, Patron, Hawaiian Airlines and Ghirardelli ,which it won in December.

The Ghirardelli win is part of an ongoing strategy to have both offices involved in more pitches. Previously “[MullenLowe West] focused on solidifying the clients that we had, making sure they were happy and making sure that they were growing organically so while there hasn’t been an external growth our clients have grown internally,” said Cartagena. “Now we’re in phase two and we’re actively pitching from both regions.”