Havas New York Appoints Justine Feron as Chief Strategy Officer

Havas New York has announced the appointment of Justine Feron as chief strategy officer. In her role, she will lead a talented team of strategists across the agency’s clients, including Danone, Keurig Dr Pepper and JBL, developing meaningful strategies to drive business results. Feron’s appointment rounds out Havas New York’s leadership team which includes Sarah Collinson (CEO) and Dan Lucey (CCO and co-CEO), and comes on the heels of Melissa Tifrere’s recent promotion to chief production officer.

With more than 15 years of experience, Justine has spent her career advising many of the world’s biggest brands, such as Snickers, Dove, Doritos, Gillette, Häagen-Dazs, and more. Prior to Havas, she spent eight years at Grey New York, most recently as its head of brand strategy. Her work for the agency – across clients ranging from Modelo to Marriott, Pringles to Pantene, and Febreze to Frank’s RedHot – won Lions in Cannes, cleaned up at the Effies, and went to the Super Bowl several times. Earlier in her career she led the strategy team at TAXI New York and honed her craft at both BBDO and Ogilvy. 

“Brand strategy is more important than ever before,” said Sarah and Dan. According to Havas’ Global Meaningful Brands Report, 81% of brands could disappear tomorrow and no one would care. “As an industry we are clearly not doing enough to create meaningful brands. With Justine’s proven track record of uncovering powerful insights to really connect with audiences and drive creative excellence we couldn’t be more excited to have her on board” said Collinson. “What we love about Justine is her ability to take in all the data and weave a simple and clear effective strategy.”  We know she’s going to create real impact for our clients,” said Lucey. 

“There’s a parallel between the challenges faced by both brands and agencies today – in order to thrive, they have to have reasons for being that truly resonate,” said Justine. “And when Dan and Sarah told me about some of Havas’ reasons for being – the agency’s fight against indifference, its determination to make the complex feel simple, and its longstanding commitment to building brand meaning – I immediately thought: I want in on this. I’m so excited to hit the ground running.”

Justine will be spearheading strategic work across existing clients along with new projects which will be announced in the coming weeks. Drawing on Havas’ recently unveiled Converged platform, she will work to implement an integrated approach that will further global collaboration and seamlessly fuse strategic talent, capabilities, platforms, and expertise.