Grey Puerto Rico renews management team

Richard Pascual, Margie Canales and Mariana Gallardo join ad firm

SAN JUAN — Local advertising agency Grey Puerto Rico announced Thursday that it made key appointments to its management team.

Richard Pascual was named VP general manager, Margie Canales VP creative director and Mariana Gallardo is the digital director.

The new team is responsible for managing a growing client portfolio—that includes leading brands such as Mars, Procter & Gamble, Suiza Dairy, GlaxoSmithKline and Dietz & Watson—through what the firm calls its “famously effective” integrated service offering, which comprises market intelligence services, ad campaign development, digital content and “shopper marketing.”

Pascual’s career in the industry spans 25 years and began at The Bravo Group, a New York-based agency specializing on Hispanic markets. He has served in renowned local agencies such as FCB and EJE Sociedad Publicitaria, now known as DDB Latina. Pascual served as vice president group account director, heading groups of accounts for clients such as Triple-S, Walgreens and Telecommunications Services of Trinidad & Tobago.

Meanwhile, Canales has 20 years’ experience in the creative department of some of the leading ad agencies in Puerto Rico, such as Badillo, Y&R, McCann Erickson and J. Walter Thompson, where she served as associate creative director. Canales has led the development of campaigns for clients that include Popular, AT&T and Nestlé, and her work has been recognized with awards that include a Bronze Lion from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and others from the New York Festival, El Ojo de Iberoamérica and Cúspide, the local advertising festival.

With her appointment at Grey, Gallardo returns to the island after working for several years at ThirdEar (formerly Latin Works in Austin, Texas. Before that experience, she worked in local agencies such as BBDO and Buena Vibra Group, managing brands such as T-Mobile, Hershey’s and MillerCoors.

“The integration of this talented and experienced team opens a new and exciting stage in the history of Grey Puerto Rico, an agency that has served this market well for decades and is well-positioned to grow exponentially under the leadership of its new management,” said Marco Milsessi, CEO of Grey Latam.

After its 2015 restructuring, led by Carlos Laureano, Grey Puerto Rico, part of the WPP conglomerate, has been transformed into an integrated services agency, tripling its client portfolio and billings in the past four years. Laureano was recently appointed CEO of Wunderman Thompson Puerto Rico, making way for a new generation of leaders at Grey Puerto Rico.

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