Former Amazon Head of Digital Will Drive Holistic Investment Offer,
Deliver Performance-Based Solutions for Biggest US Media Agency

Posted by Omnicom Media Group | October 2, 2023

New York, NY (October 2, 2023) – Omnicom Media Group agency OMD USA, the top ranked US media agency by billings and net new business in 2022, has named Suhaila Hobba Chief Media Officer. Hobba joins OMD from her role as Amazon MODE’s Global Head of Digital, where she built Amazon’s in-house media capabilities, setting a vision for planning and activating media that put innovation, automation, and scale at the core of media ROI.

As OMD’s Chief Media Officer, she will define the vision, design the practices, and drive interdisciplinary collaboration for the agency’s holistic media investment offer – bringing together strategy, planning, investment, activation ,and measurement to deliver performance-based solutions that accelerate business growth for clients.

Hobba is the first outside hire made by OMD US CEO Chrissie Hanson in her 15 months in the job, joining the leadership team that Hanson has been building to put rigor behind the rhetoric of the modern media marketplace.

“The speed at which the industry has been moving toward all media as performance media demands equally swift organizational and operational transformation to enable holistic media planning and ensure the connected consumer experiences that power performance,” says Hanson. “With her two-decade record as a transformation agent – most recently for a company that’s driving the performance revolution – Suhaila has the experience and expertise to bring together all OMD capabilities, products and services, and pull through the performance thread to deliver business growth for our clients and our agency, and opportunities for our talent.”

The appointment marks a return to the agency world for Hobba, who spent more than two decades in digital strategy roles across holding company media shops – including OMD, where she was part of the team that won a Gold Media Lion for the Doritos Crash the Superbowl campaign. Prior to leading Amazon’s in-house agency for digital planning and activation, she spent eight years overseeing global agency partnerships at Yahoo!, identifying new opportunities for leveraging platform capabilities to deliver increased value and drive business transformation.

“My combined agency, ad tech and client-side experience has given me invaluable perspective on what brands need from their media partners to keep moving forward – faster than their competition and apace with their customers’ next move – as technology continues to compress the purchase funnel; and the tools, talent and technology needed to meet this mandate,” says Hobba.

“As Chief Media Officer, my priority will be ensuring that OMD is unlocking Omnicom Media Group’s “Agency as a Platform” capabilities to connect media, content ,and commerce, and leveraging Omnicom’s Omni open operating system to orchestrate holistic media solutions that are enabled by cross-discipline collaboration, rooted in performance, implemented with agility and precision, and drive measurable actions.”

Her appointment is effective immediately.