MSQ expands into North America to give clients easier access to integrated services

We’re delighted to announce that we’re expanding our multidisciplinary offer in North America to give clients better and easier access to integrated marketing services, through a number of senior hires.

To kick things off, we’ve appointed Aaron Lang as the first President of MSQ North America. Lang joins from Deloitte Digital, where he was a Managing Director within our Advertising, Marketing and Commerce group. He will report directly to MSQ Chief Executive, Peter Reid. 

Prior to his role at Deloitte, Aaron oversaw the work that led to San Francisco-based agency Heat winning Adweek’s Breakthrough Agency of the Year and subsequent acquisition to Deloitte in 2016. 

Lang will be joined at MSQ by Justin Cox, who becomes our first Chief Strategy Officer, North America. Justin was most recently General Manager and Chief Strategy Officer at Deloitte Digital’s Heat, and will work closely with Lang in developing the MSQ offer in the region.

With previous stints at agencies including Publicis & Hal Riney, Pereira O’Dell and DDB California, Justin strategically led Heat to be named the #1 Most Effective Independent Agency at the Effies. 

Rounding out the MSQ US team are several other key leadership hires across the newly expanded group proposition. Mike DaRe and Sheila Hozhabri have joined to launch Smarts, our Cultural Comms and PR agency, in North America for the first time. Susan Levy has joined as General Manager to relaunch branding shop Holmes & Marchant New York, and Nancy Aresu has been appointed as the President of The Gate New York, our creative and media agency. Meanwhile, Susan Guerrero was last year promoted to Chief Operating Officer to lead Stein IAS in the US, our award-winning B2B agency.

The leadership team will work closely together to bring the MSQ joined-up thinking proposition to life, driving a group of diverse thinkers who use human insight, technology and creativity to help brands thrive, adapt and disrupt in today’s world.

The investment means that five of our nine agencies now have a presence in North America. Further capabilities and services – such as our new dynamic content production and delivery offer that makes insight-driven personalisation of creative content a possibility for clients of all investment levels – will also be rolled out in the region throughout 2021.

Peter Reid, Chief Executive of MSQ, says: “MSQ has been growing rapidly and evolving our multi-disciplinary proposition on an international level is the key next step in our journey. We have an agile, accessible model that offers clients world-class creative and strategic thinking on a global and local level, and by creating these new roles – and bringing in such leading industry talent to fill them – we’re confident that our proven joined-up model will thrive in the US market.”

Lang says: “MSQ’s proposition is perfect for ambitious brands in North America looking for a marketing partner who can help them deal with the change that’s happening in every aspect of their business and their customers’ lives. Too often clients either end up getting entangled in big holding companies or are unable to access the integrated capabilities they need from individual agencies. MSQ is able to offer a unique multidisciplinary approach and I look forward to working with the talented new leadership team to bring that approach to life.”

J.