ST.  LOUIS — FleishmanHillard continues its leadership reshuffle with the promotion of longtime leader Della Sweetman to president, Americas and chief strategy officer, following JJ Carter’s elevation to CEO in October.

"Della is the ideal candidate to lead our critical Americas region and spearhead our enterprise-wide transformation," said Carter, who spent eight years leading the agency’s largest region before being selected to succeed John Saunders as president and CEO.

“She understands our agency’s unique strengths and brings operational rigor and growth experience. Della has proven effective in executing change within our organization, which has elevated our work and improved our competitiveness. We have the personal trust that comes from many years working together and will challenge each other to push the agency forward,” he said.

Sweetman is charged with overseeing the strategic direction and operational management of the agency, working closely with market leaders in the Americas to align strategies, investments and resourcing to support the needs of its clients and the transformative changes for the agency. 

She has spent more than a decade with FleishmanHillard in a number of roles, most recently serving as executive lead of global creative, strategy and planning and global chief business development officer.

Prior to that, Sweetman was head of business development for the Americas, served as global client leader for one of the agency’s largest accounts, and was also the former general manager for FleishmanHillard in Southern California

In a conversation with PRovoke Media, Sweetman said that after a more than a year of “great disruption for clients and our industry” her overarching goals include positioning FleishmanHillard to be “at the front of change as an agency”  through the likes of new solutions, operating models, expertise, talent and more.

“It has been an interesting year in that its pushed us to rethink innovation, rethink ingenuity and how as a discipline we show up and prove a different value proposition to our clients, and that is to drive the business of our clients,” Sweetman said.

Sweetman’s appointment is effective immediately.