DDB global chief loses cancer battle

DDB president and CEO Ken Kaess has lost his fight with cancer, after battling the illness for the past six months. <BR><BR> Described by Omnicom head John Wren as "the driver behind DDB's success these last five years", Kaess began his advertising career as an account executive at DDB's New York office in 1976 when the agency was known as Doyle Dane Bernbach. He subsequently left the network, returning in 1990 as head of the Los Angeles office, and within nine years was named president of DDB Worldwide and chairman of its worldwide operating committee. <BR><BR> Kaess assumed the additional role of CEO in January 2001. DDB executives told Media that Kaess truly believed that the network's greatest asset was its people, and he helped nurture their passion for the business to produce effective and award-winning work for clients such as Dell, McDonald's, Johnson & Johnson and Volkswagen.