Our Global
Leadership Team
Our global executive leadership team is led by DDB Worldwide’s Global CEO, Marty O’Halloran. They are a bunch of talented and nice, relatively normal people who meet frequently and lead the DDB Worldwide network across all six of our regions inclusive of North America, EMEA, Latina, Australia/New Zealand, India and Asia. As you get to know DDB a little better, we thought you’d enjoy learning a little bit more about each of them once you hover over and click on their avatars below.
Marty O’Halloran was appointed DDB Worldwide Chief Executive Officer in July 2020.
With over 30 years of experience at DDB, Marty brings a deep understanding of the network’s rich history, culture, and people to the role of worldwide CEO. Marty spent nearly 20 years with the network before being named Chairman and CEO of DDB Group Australia and New Zealand in 2005. He also serves as Board Director of the Omnicom Media Group Australia and New Zealand Board and was the Chairman of the Interbrand Australia board. Throughout his career, Marty has been a driver of creativity, talent, and culture for DDB and its clients.
Marty has a deep understanding of client needs, which resulted in the Australia and New Zealand agencies some of the most recognized and awarded agencies in the world. During his time as Chairman and CEO of DDB Group Australia and New Zealand, the region dominated in a variety of Agency of the Year and regional Network of the Year awards including AWARD, Axis, Campaign in addition to international awards including Cannes, One Show, D&AD, Spikes, and Campaign Asia Pacific. Under Marty’s leadership, DDB in Australia and New Zealand has been recognized as the fastest growing international network in the region.
In his role as CEO of DDB Worldwide, Marty ‘s leadership spans over 100 offices across the world.
A former member of the Australia Rowing team, Marty is married to his wife, Deborah, with whom he raised three children.
Ari Weiss has been at the heart of defining Unexpected Works for the DDB Network across 149 offices in 63 countries around the world. As Global Chief Creative Officer, Ari has led the agency to Network of the Year at D&AD, Spikes Asia, El Ojo De Iberoamerica, ADC and One Show.
With more than 20 years of experience, Ari is best known for creating some of the most unexpected work in the industry for world-famous brands, including Skittles, Starburst, Twix, Miller Lite, Coors Light, McDonald’s, John Lewis, PlayStation, Reporters Without Borders, House of Lapland, and Volkswagen. Across this impressive list of clients, the network has won an unprecedented 400 Cannes Lions under Weiss’ leadership.
During his five years at DDB, he led the agency’s visual identity redesign, the launch of the network’s Unexpected Works brand positioning, and helped unify the immensely talented network of global creatives with the network’s first gender-balanced Global Creative Council.Weiss learned his craft by way of BBDO, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, Wieden + Kennedy and Cliff Freeman & Partners. He lives in New York with his three children and wife Dara.
Alex is DDB Worldwide’s Global President and Chief Operating Officer focused on growth and is working closely with Marty O’Halloran and DDB’s global leadership team on DDB’s global strategic plan. Alex was most recently President, McCann North America where he held several regional leadership roles during the course of his tenure there. Before taking on his role at the helm of McCann’s North America region, Alex led McCann’s integrated new business activity, was President of McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific, and was also the CEO of McCann London. Prior to that he held leadership roles with agencies including Grey and BBH.
Alex was born and raised in London.
His father is American, his mother is French, his wife is Mexican and has three young children, Lucas, Dylan and Siena. He plays tennis with enthusiasm, periodically runs until injured, and is in constant search of snow in which to wipe out.
As Global Chief People Officer for the DDB Network, Roisin’s role is to optimize DDB’s people-centered activities to ensure continuous growth for our 10,000 employees around the world.
She is a network lifer who has DDB proudly cursing through her veins. Her partnership with DDB Global CEO Marty O’Halloran ensures we hold ourselves accountable to nurturing and bringing to life an exceptional company culture, embodied through our values, beliefs, and behaviours.
Roisin is passionate about authentic leadership and building inclusive cultures. A people connector whose greatest joy is to support exceptional talent to do amazing things. Helping people unleash their full potential to make them proud of who they are and what they do.
Mike is the Global CFO of DDB Worldwide. An accomplished finance leader for over 20 years, Mike began his career with Omnicom as a Senior Accountant. He then elevated to Corporate Accounting Manager and Director of Corporate Accounting before becoming Controller for DDB US. In 2014, Mike became CFO for DDB EMEA and rose to take on his current role as global CFO in 2020.
A driving force within the DDB network, Mike oversees the strategic financial planning process across all global regions. He is in lock step with DDB WW’s global CEO Marty O’Halloran and provides direction to all DDB regional and local agency leaders on financial plans, forecasting and reporting into Omnicom. As a member of DDB WW’s global leadership team, Mike’s sharp financial acumen and guidance provides a solid foundation which fuels DDB WW’s growth.
Mike is an Australian and US citizen. He graduated from the University of Western Australia and has enjoyed living and working in Australia, the UK, US and Canada over the years. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife JoAnna, their 2 kids and dog. Important to note, Mike enjoys pina coladas and doesn’t mind getting caught in the rain.
Donna brings her passion for people, creativity and being a positive change agent to her role as Global Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at DDB Worldwide.
In addition to being a member of DDB’s Global Executive Leadership Team, she is on DDB’s North America Leadership Team, the OmniWomenNY Board and the 4A’s Agency Communications Committee. Dedicated to mentorship, Donna developed and launched a Women’s Leadership Network and mentoring program while at WPP’s Kantar, is an active mentor as part of Omnicom’s OmniWomen mentorship program, and has participated in the 4A’s Vanguard Mentorship program, as well as the MAIP Mentorship program.
Prior to her role at DDB Worldwide, Donna was the EVP, Marketing, Communications, Events & Partnerships at the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s). She has extensive ad agency account management experience and led global brands, marketing, communications, and product development across industries including food and beverage, fashion, toys, licensing, and entertainment at companies such as Ocean Spray, Hasbro, Basic Fun!, and WPP.
Donna was also selected by Marketing Edge Magazine as a Top Female CMO and as a jury member for The Drum’s PR Awards. She loves music, has three girls, and lives in New Jersey with her husband John and their 85-pound black lab.
For almost 30 years, Justin has worked in the precision and integrated marketing industry across a number of sectors including Health & Wellness, pharma, technology, automotive, travel, financial services and fashion. In his role as CEO of DDB North America, Justin is helping integrate creative with brand insights, data and technology to help clients generate innovative and revenue-driving business solutions. He has spent his career developing and leading teams to take brands through the complete consumer journey, leveraging brand awareness down to immersive experiences and demand generation.
Justin joined DDB from OPMG Health, an Omnicom Precision Marketing Group network, where he served as Global CEO. As CEO he was responsible for developing the vision, position and strategy of the network and its clients across all brands and regions globally, working on Eli Lilly, GSK, BlueCross/Blue Shield, Ascension Health, Pfizer, and United Health.
A true globalist, Justin has led global teams in London, Paris, Benelux, Singapore, Moscow, Finland and New York, supporting large, complex client engagements. He has won multiple creative and strategic awards, including the Precision Marketing Grand Prix for merging creative, data & technology strategies. Earlier in his career, Justin served client-side as Chief Digital Officer at Novartis Consumer Health based in Switzerland, setting a global digital transformation strategy which saw Novartis develop partnerships with the likes of Google, Adobe, Amazon, Boots (Walgreen), ePharmacies.
Nikki Lamba sits on the DDB Worldwide Executive Leadership team as DDB’s first Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Officer. In her role, Nikki is responsible for designing and implementing DDB’s global DEI strategy, ensuring that DDB’s core values, The Four Freedoms, are a key driver for agency culture. Nikki is also a part of Omnicom’s Employee Research Group’s leadership team and DDB’s North America leadership team, where she partners closely with the regional Chief Executive Officer and Chief People Officer to ensure that DEI is strategically intrinsic to the people and talent strategy.
Additionally, Nikki leads DDB North America’s Equality in Advertising Council (EAC) which brings together DEI champions from across offices to drive the strategic plan by curating activations designed to educate and create shared dialogues. Nikki was recently recognized as a finalist by Crain’s NY Business as a Top 2022 D&I leader, is an Aspen Ideas Scholar, and has spoken at events such as The 3% Conference, AdCouncil, Asians In Advertising, and the Ad Club of NY.
Prior to her current role, Nikki spent 11 years with global research organization Catalyst, providing partnership and guidance on organizational strategies and D&I programming in order to hire, advance and retain diverse talent for F1000 organizations across a range of industries. She holds her masters degree (MSc) in Global Politics from the London School of Economics.
Nikki is married, has two daughters, and lives in Connecticut.
Glen is CEO of Europe, Middle East and Africa and has been with DDB since 1995, having joined the London office as part of a graduate trainee program.
Based in London, he is responsible for the EMEA region and focused on building incredibly motivated teams across geographies to create an environment where creativity and effectiveness can truly flourish across the network.
Glen has managed a multitude of local and international brands including Unilever, Diageo, MARS, McDonald’s, Vodafone, Volkswagen, Honda and Reuters. One of his first accounts was Unilever’s UK local jewel, PG Tips; he went on to manage DDB’s global relationship with the Unilever business, growing it into 50+ markets and leading it to consistent Cannes Lion success.
For 10 years Glen was based in South Africa as Chairman and CEO of the region. From here he had the unique and incredibly inspiring opportunity to build the DDB network across the African continent in order to help global clients such as Unilever, Mars Wrigley and Diageo expand into previously unchartered territories.
His particular passion is transformation – whether it be growing people, businesses or agencies to defy even their own expectations of what is possible. He thrives on the energy and momentum this creates.
