3 Agencies Just Told You Where They’re Headed Next

Highdive, Born and Raised and Allen & Gerritsen made leadership hires this week that have nothing to do with filling vacancies

Three indie agencies made leadership moves this week. None of them filled existing roles. All three created new ones.

Highdive in Chicago promoted Isabel Long to the newly created position of Chief Growth & Marketing Officer. Born and Raised in Philadelphia named Angus McCoubrey its first-ever Chief Strategy Officer. And Allen & Gerritsen in Boston brought in Cherie Johnson as Head of Media — the final hire in a two-year transformation of the agency’s media practice.

Different agencies, different disciplines, same signal: indie shops are building the leadership infrastructure they need for the next chapter, not borrowing it from the holding company playbook.

The woman who doubled Highdive

Long joined Highdive in 2021 as Head of Growth. Since then, she’s doubled the size of the agency. That’s not a metaphor.

Her team brought in nine new clients in the past year alone — breaking Highdive into B2B and health for the first time with wins like Build-A-Bear and Conagra — and the agency has now posted nine consecutive years of double-digit growth, including a 24% year-over-year revenue increase in 2025. The newly created C-suite title isn’t ceremonial. It catches up to what Long has already been doing.

“Now my remit is growing in terms of responsibilities, but the goal remains the same: Tell Highdive’s story in a way that allows us to grow with clients who value healthy relationships and want to be our partners in making breakthrough work,” Long says.

Before Highdive, Long spent her career at the intersection of advertising and PR business development — MSL, Edelman, DDB and Deutsch NY. She reports to CEO Megan Lally, who called her “a pivotal force” behind the agency’s rise. Hard to argue when the receipts include #2 on Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List, a fourth #1 USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter finish in five years and recognition as the 14th fastest-growing company in all of Chicago.

Strategy gets the keys in Philly

McCoubrey spent eight years as Head of Strategy at Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners. Nearly two decades in the business, spanning global holding company clients and award-winning indie campaigns. He’s a Philadelphia native taking a bet on Philadelphia’s longest-running independent agency — and he’s clear about what he wants the work to feel like.

“Strategy that isn’t interesting, daring and rooted in culture doesn’t build brands worth remembering,” McCoubrey says.

The role puts him across the full Brownstein Group network — Born and Raised plus sister agencies Red Thread PR, Poster Child and Nucleus Digital — connecting brand strategy with PR, influencer and digital. Erin Allsman, President of Brownstein Group, called McCoubrey “a connective leader who gets creativity, challenges the status quo and makes ideas that matter.”

For an agency creating its first-ever strategy chief, the hire says everything about where the investment is going. Strategy isn’t getting a seat at the table. It’s getting the keys to the building.

A&G’s two-year bet pays off

Johnson’s hire is different from the other two. Long and McCoubrey stepped into roles built around their specific strengths. Johnson is the capstone of a deliberate, two-year overhaul.

Allen & Gerritsen spent that time rebuilding its media practice around what it calls an “Investment Strategy” approach — behavioral science, analytics and human-centered creativity fused inside an AI-assisted framework. The agency pushed past traditional paid media into earned, influenced, searched, discovered and experienced channels. Johnson is the person they built the infrastructure for.

Her background is the tell. Johnson didn’t come up through media buying. She spent over a decade in entertainment marketing — Gaumont (the production company behind “Narcos” and “Hannibal”), Game Show Network, Kinetic Worldwide. Before A&G, she was SVP and Managing Director at TorchLight Marketing and held senior roles at SharkNinja, MRM, HLK and Connelly Partners.

“’Be Unignorable’ is something I genuinely believe in and live every day,” Johnson says. “Getting to bring that energy and passion to work with incredible clients truly feels like a pinch-me moment.”

Darshan Sampathu, EVP of Media & Analytics at A&G, called Johnson “the visionary we needed to expand our media practice.” She joins a leadership team that includes Monica Lorusso, Tory Navarro and Derek Welch.

What the week tells you

Growth, strategy, media. Three agencies, three new roles, three different bets on where the edge comes from. None of them waited for permission. None of them filled a vacancy.

That’s the indie advantage in a sentence: when you see the gap, you build the role.