Colm Murphy has been appointed chief strategy officer at McCann New York. Murphy was most recently co-head of strategy at Droga5, where he built and led the flagship Chase account and helped the agency develop its strategic approach across the total brand experience beyond communications.

“Our mission is to help brands play a meaningful role in people’s lives and to do that we must start with a strategic foundation of understanding in how human beings live and behave,” said Devika Bulchandani, McCann New York president. “Colm has an impressive and diverse mix of talent and experience building brands and businesses, and a human approach to how he leads teams.”

Murphy will lead strategy for McCann New York, working closely with clients to ensure more customer-centric, creative and effective marketing, and further building the best strategic agency offering. Prior to Droga5 he ran strategy for several clients at JWT in New York and London, including Rolex, Kraft, Shell, Nestle and Microsoft.

“Colm is a bold thinker with demonstrated expertise in identifying opportunities for client growth,” said Lee Maicon, McCann North America chief strategy officer. “Under his leadership, I’m confident that our New York teams will continue to build on our success and strengthen the breadth of strategic thinking in a way that will move our agency, our clients and the industry forward.”