Susan Credle has been appointed to serve as Interpublic Group’s (NYSE: IPG) first-ever creative advisor. In addition to taking on this newly created role, Credle will continue to serve as chair of global integrated creative network FCB through the remainder of 2024. Credle will also continue to report to IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky.
In the new role, partnering with creative leaders across IPG’s agencies, Credle will advance the culture of creativity at IPG, ensuring it is central in all the network’s work for brands. Notably, Credle will be tasked with infusing creative perspectives into emerging offerings such as commerce and marketing technology solutions and ensuring that the holding company’s canvas for creativity includes new and emerging areas like generative AI and systemized creative at scale.
Credle will continue to be a leading creative champion for the industry and assist IPG agencies in attracting and nurturing global creative talent. In the role, Credle will consult with IPG companies on their unique creative frameworks, advise on IPG’s global production solution, and bring a creative lens to IPG’s central leadership team.
Krakowsky commented, “Under Susan’s creative leadership, FCB has dramatically outperformed much larger competitors, being named the Cannes Lions Global Network of the Year, and the Festival’s North America Network of the Year for the last five years, which is an industry first. We wanted to create an opportunity for that impact to extend to the rest of IPG in a role that respects the importance of our agency brands and also positions Susan to inspire and influence the breadth of our company. This advisory role allows us all to tap into her unique expertise, her standing as an industry leader, and her interest in representing the power of creative ideas linked to our full range of capabilities, in the service of building our clients’ brands and growing their businesses.”
An industry luminary, Credle has earned a reputation as one of the most respected advertising creative executives, known for her rise from intern to the top creative roles at the world’s best-known agencies, including BBDO, Leo Burnett and FCB. Credle is the creator behind some of the most famous, impactful and beloved campaigns such as those establishing the M&M’s “spokescandies” and Allstate’s “Mayhem” as icons of popular culture. Since joining FCB in 2016, she has built a structure and a culture where creativity can always happen and be a meaningful economic multiplier for brands, which has led to client success, including helping Michelob ULTRA become the fastest growing beer brand in America.
Throughout her career, Credle has created award-winning work that has driven business growth for some of the world’s largest brands including AB InBev, Bank of America, Clorox, FedEx, Kimberly-Clark and Walmart.
Credle added: “I’ve been in the FCB role for eight years and I’m thrilled with where we are creatively. Our agencies around the world are set up for continued success, we’ve attracted and nurtured incredible talent, our business is strong and we’re confronting innovation and emerging technologies faster and more aggressively. I feel like I now have the bandwidth to take on this next challenge and help IPG continue to build this amazing culture. I look forward to working closely with Philippe and creative leads across the portfolio to accelerate growth for brands through great ideas.”
The first-ever woman to be named chair of The One Club for Creativity, Credle has served as a juror for every major industry award show, leads one of the Ad Council’s creative review committees, and is a strong advocate of diversity, equity and inclusion having dedicated much of the last two decades to ensuring more diverse representation in leadership positions across the industry.
Credle is a NY Women in Communications Matrix award honoree. She was the first recipient of UNC’s Media & Journalism’s Next Generation Leadership Award in 2008 and was inducted into the NC Media & Journalism Hall of Fame in 2014. She currently serves on the M&J-school Board of Advisers and was inducted into the AAF Advertising Hall of Achievement in 2004.
