Initiative appoints Eric Bader to newly created global role as chief strategy officer

Reporting to Richard Beaven, Initiative’s worldwide chief executive, Bader joins its worldwide leadership team and will be based in New York.

He boasts expertise in mobile communications having co-founded U.S mobile marketing agency Brand In Hand in 2007 and has worked on clients including Walmart, IBM, Wendy’s, Best Buy, American Express and Coca-Cola.

Prior to Brand In Hand, Bader was SVP, managing director, digital, at MediaVest Worldwide. He has over 10 years of experience and was also a senior strategist at Ogilvy.

In his new role, he is charged with driving strategy, planning and insight across the network and will work with Initiative’s biggest global clients. He will work closely with Sarah Ivey, Initiative’s global director of communication planning, with Bant Breen, worldwide president of digital communication plus Jeffrey Graham, worldwide director performance to roll out its performance-led approach to communications around the network.

On his appointment, Beaven said: “Having someone of Eric’s reputation and experience – as an entrepreneur, strategist, digital visionary and outstanding client lead – will be of enormous benefit to Initiative as we move forward with our performance-led approach to communications. Eric will help our teams around the world take our work to the next level, so we continue to deliver breakthrough results for clients.”

Bader added: “I’ve been enormously impressed with Initiative’s technology empowered and digitally infused capabilities and its focus on performance. I’m looking forward to working with Initiative’s leaders to solve clients’ business challenges through innovative and digitally enabled marketing solutions.”