BPA Worldwide has named Gaye Sussman its chairman for 2009-2010 and elected five new members to its board of directors.
Sussman, the founding president of direct marketing media services company ID Media officially took on her new role May 21, at the board of directors’ most recent meeting. BPA president and CEO Glenn Hansen will report to Sussman, and she will oversee board meetings and sit on the executive committee of BPA.
“Gaye Sussman has expertise in a lot of different areas, including digital, and certainly our business is growing in that area,” said Peter Black, SVP of business development, BPA. “She represents the entire industry in a very broad sense.”
Also assuming their roles then were newly elected Board members Dana Bates, director of advertising and sponsorship marketing for Continental Airlines; Warren Bimblick, SVP of strategy and business development at Penton Media; George Dillehay, SVP of Incisive Media’s Legal Group; William Fox, SVP of Fidelity Communications and Advertising; and Greg Smith, COO for digital and direct media company Neo@Ogilvy.
Five Board members were reelected this year: Carl Anderson, president and CEO of business communications agency Doremus and Co.; Niel Hiscox, VP of b-to-b publisher CLB Media Inc.; Mark Stanich, SVP and CMO for American Express Publishing Corp.; Ron Wall, SVP of publications for Canon Communications; and Richard Willingham, president of b-to-b communications company Motum b2b.
Many of the board members — new and reelected — are bringing hefty digital experience to BPA. Greg Smith, for instance, started the interactive division at Carat before joining Neo@Ogilvy in 2005, and Wall helped Canon launch Canon 2.0, which required a large investment in e-media.
“The executives that we picked to come on the Board are all very experienced, so many will have digital backgrounds,” said Black. “I don’t think it should be interpreted as a conscious effort by BPA, but an acknowledgement that everybody’s business is just moving in that direction. BPA is largely growing the business in a number of different areas — internationally and certainly more in the digital landscape as well.”
