Chairman and CEO, JWT Worldwide

Bob Jeffrey, JWT Chairman and CEO, relaunched the fourth largest advertising agency in the world as a “billion-dollar startup” in February 2005. “We are dedicated to innovation—to thinking and acting like a billion-dollar startup that’s flat, faster and more fun,” explains the 25-year ad veteran, who took the reins of the 300-plus-office global network in 2004.

Bob assumed the additional title of Chairman in 2005. Today, he continues to solidify JWT’s leadership across the globe as he cultivates a winning culture that inspires, nurtures and protects creativity.

In 2004, during Bob’s first year as Worldwide CEO, JWT notched significant global wins, most notably HSBC, and continued to earn incremental business from its existing client base, which includes Ford, Unilever and Pfizer. Prior to that, Bob was President of JWT North America, a role he took on in 2001 after spearheading the revitalization and growth of JWT’s New York operations. Using the transformation of the flagship office as a model, he is reengineered JWT from a traditional ad agency into a fully integrated brand communications company.

Bob joined JWT as New York President in 1998 after two years as Executive Vice President, Managing Director at Lowe & Partners. There, Bob established that agency’s first West Coast operation, attracting Sun Microsystems, Eddie Bauer and Charles Schwab, among other clients.

Currently living in New York City, Bob grew up in Providence, R.I., as the eldest of seven children. He began his advertising career in 1982 as an account executive, first at DDB and then at Chiat\Day in New York. In 1987, he co-founded Goldsmith/Jeffrey, and under his nine-year watch as President and Chief Strategic Officer, the agency became highly regarded for its creative work on accounts such as ESPN, JP Morgan and Bergdorf Goodman. Lowe acquired the agency in 1996.

Blog Entries by Bob Jeffrey

Millennials' New Mantra: Have Less, Imagine More

Posted April 20, 2009 | 12:32 PM (EST)


The Millennials, who were supposed to be the harbingers of a global interwebbed knowledge-based prosperity, are now inheritors of one of the greatest collapses of collective judgment this century has seen. Are they in denial, in disappointment or simply in disbelief?

Some recent research we've conducted at JWT, part...

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Davos, Twitterville and Me

12 Comments | Posted February 6, 2009 | 06:05 PM (EST)



They say you can't teach old dogs new tricks. But now that this middle-aged CEO has learned how to stop talking about new media and communications styles and start living them, I'd argue the exact opposite.

For years we've talked about the great democratization of information and power,...

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Getting Grounded: An Agenda for the Near Future

7 Comments | Posted December 15, 2008 | 10:57 PM (EST)


With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that we've been defying gravity for a long time. Probably since the days when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher lifted our spirits with passionate, well-delivered rhetoric extolling the benefits of deregulation, supply-side economics and the free marketplace.

In the span of...

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"Idea Racism" and Solving our Financial Crisis

Posted October 23, 2008 | 04:39 PM (EST)


The longer the global financial crisis drags on, the more layers of complexity become exposed. Who would have thought that people all over the world would so avidly follow a financial drama with an arcane plotline involving subprime mortgages, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, investment banks, commercial paper, credit default...

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Advertising: It's Not Just for Selling Stuff

Posted June 5, 2007 | 12:17 PM (EST)


Of all the contributions to society that advertising can claim -- and for many people, it's not a long list -- one that's generally ignored is its contribution to tolerance and understanding. I don't mean ads like "It's a Small World After All" and "I'd Like to Buy the World...

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Travels With Bob

Posted April 6, 2007 | 11:00 AM (EST)


As the CEO of the world's fourth largest network of advertising agencies, I've amassed more miles than Condi Rice. And the load isn't getting lighter--these days, JWT has offices in more than 200 countries. I keep a suitcase packed for the overnight hauls that are sometimes well planned and sometimes...

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Teens Inspriring Action

Posted March 19, 2007 | 07:16 PM (EST)


In Thomas Friedman's seminal work The World Is Flat, one of the premises that captured my attention was Friedman's focus and emphasis on education--both in the U.S. and in the rest of the world. It's certainly true that "children are our future"; how they are prepared for that future needs...

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