NEW YORK — Burson has named Chad Latz, Grant Toups and Chris Kief the firm’s global chief innovation, digital and intelligence, and technology officers respectively.

Latz (pictured) will retain the global chief innovation officer role he currently has with BCW when the agency merges with Hill & Knowlton on July 1, creating a single entity called Burson. He will be responsible for leading Burson’s innovation efforts and development of products, including AI-first solutions. Latz is also responsible for continuing to build and manage a team of AI-focused practitioners and partners across data, technology and academia.

Toups, currently H&K’s global chief technology officer, will become Burson’s global chief digital and intelligence officer. Toups will be responsible for operationalizing and scaling the delivery of digital-first client solutions. He will guide a global team offering digital/social communications, reputation enhancement and defense, technology/AI advisory and advanced intelligence solutions.

In addition, Kief,  currently BCW global chief technology officer, will retain that title with Burson. He will lead enterprise technology strategy, including investments and licenses, deployments and governance of technology offerings. He also will oversee engineering teams to accelerate product development. 

“Artificial intelligence and new digital technologies are having a seismic effect on the communications business,” said BCW global CEO Corey duBrowa, who will be Burson’s global CEO as well.  “We are driving clear, higher-order value for our clients through the creation of tools such as Decipher and Sonar to both predict and blunt weaponized information and to build and test messages informed by the precision of data and predictive analytics.

“We are committed to using AI and other emerging technologies to define and deliver the most innovative communication solutions in the industry to solve our clients’ greatest challenges,” duBrowa added. “This is the right team to lead this approach, which is core to our principle of reputation as the differentiating characteristic for our clients in the marketplace.”