VaynerMedia hires industry vet Wanda Pogue for global strategy

Gary Vaynerchuk believes today - November 4 - could be a date remembered in advertising history.

Here’s why: The agency’s newly appointed global chief strategy officer Wanda Pogue, as well as its new chief creative officer Rob Lenois, are both officially start in their posts today.

"As I’m becoming more educated in the ad world, I think this is a pretty interesting date that people will look back on as Vayner’s place in the industry and the industry as a whole," said Vaynerchuk.

"In this discipline and this ad world and at our maturity, November 4th could be a date that people look back and see that the industry swung because VaynerMedia hired executives at a time that took them to the next level and that became the North Star and every agency thereafter followed suit," added the VaynerMedia CEO and co-founder.

Pogue, previously global strategy director at Saatchi & Saatchi New York on Olay, Tide/Ariel, Head & Shoulders and Trident, joins VaynerMedia a week after the shop named Lenois as its global creative leader. She is reporting to Vaynerchuk, and will lead strategy across the agency’s global offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Singapore.

"It was tricky when looking for the right senior person for this role because right now VaynerMedia is in a very interesting time where we’re absolutely at the cross-section of traditional advertising and what we believe will be known as traditional advertising in 30 years AKA current advertising," explained Vaynerchuk.

Pogue fits the bill perfectly, he said, because she understands the classic advertising model (briefs, creative ideas, etc), as well as VaynerMedia’s "original point of view about creativity at scale and more volume of creative through underpriced media distribution channels with paid or earned to drive business results."

Vaynerchuk added that she’s also "a genuinely kind person," which is just as important to the agency when hiring as skills and expertise.

When asked about expansion plans, Vaynerchuk said he has nothing in the queue for now, but if he needed to open another office or create a new offering at the ask of a client, he would do so because he’s "always on offense." Most agencies will say no to those requests because it’s painful to the P&L, he added, but as an entrepreneur, those risks are "very much in my purview." "I’m always open to macro things," said Vaynerchuk.

As for the rest of the year, Vaynerchuk said he wants to help current and potential clients from wasting money.

"Brands tend to waste money in November and December and throw it at something that’s garbage because they’re required to spend it," he said. That’s where VaynerMedia wants to come in and showcase some of its other services, like consulting, to help brands get the most value out of their dollars.