Nicole Hubbard Graham will become Nike, Inc.’s new chief marketing officer effective, January 2, 2024. Graham, a former 18-year Nike veteran, will lead Nike’s global brand marketing team and oversee all aspects of marketing, aligning the company’s brand voice against its next era of growth. Previously at Nike, she held various global marketing leadership roles across the business and geographies. Most recently, she was co-founder of Adopt, a minority-owned company and creative agency. Graham succeeds Dirk-Jan “DJ” van Hameren, who, after an impactful 31 years with Nike, has decided to retire next summer. A former Olympian, van Hameren has been a visionary leader at the cornerstone of Nike’s global brand storytelling. His leadership propelled the business over three decades and built the brand’s world-class marketing team….
Philadelphia-headquartered indie agency LevLane Advertising has promoted Kelly Sizemore to chief growth officer. She previously served as SVP and director of strategy. In her new role, Sizemore will spearhead the agency’s initiative to identify and develop new growth pathways, ensuring long-term foundational success for both LevLane and its clients. Additionally, Sizemore’s responsibilities will include developing strategies to strengthen client satisfaction and retention, including developing new products and services and optimizing the overall quality of the service delivery. She will also lead various aspects of LevLane including sales, agency planning and operations…..
James Earl Jones, Lauded Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies At 93
James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, "The Lion King" and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.
His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York's Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.
The pioneering Jones, who was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of "The Gin Game" having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.
"The need to storytell has always been with us," he told The Associated Press then. "I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn't get him."
Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in "Field of Dreams," the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit "The Great White Hope," the writer Alex Haley in "Roots: The Next Generation" and a South African minister in "Cry, the Beloved Country."
He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader ("No, I am your father," commonly misremembered as "Luke, I am your father"), as... Read More