Barbara Cipolla to Spearhead Growth at Digitas

Digitas has hired media industry veteran Barbara Cipolla as executive vice president and chief growth officer. She’ll lead business development efforts for Digitas USA, a member of Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi, reporting to CMO Seth Solomons. She replaces Liz Ross, who moved to Mediabrands Ventures in January.

Cipolla thinks that Digitas’ combination of creative assets, analytics, media and CRM positions the agency to not only provide vision but also the capabilities clients need to get consumers to take action.

“One of the biggest challenges is confusion, and our job is to bring some clarity and vision and real accountability,” she told ClickZ.com. “We have all the pieces to do it, and no one else is talking about it in the same way.”

Cipolla aims to expand existing client relationships and go after new clients in categories like travel, hospitality and telecom where the agency already has expertise. In May, Digitas was named digital agency of record for Chili’s.

Expanding client relationships doesn’t necessarily mean attempting to consolidate more of their business, Cipolla said, but rather “taking a stronger position. We’d look to provide more leadership and a deeper relationship with clients.” She noted that Digitas has won more than 60 percent of pitches in the past year.

Cipolla joined Omnicom’s OMD Worldwide as chief marketing officer in October 2009, after two years as president of MediaCom. Her 20 years of experience includes high-level jobs at Mediaedge:cia, Ingalls Advertising, and Arnold Communications Worldwide.