Joe DeMiero

Joe DeMiero is Chief Client and Business Officer, North America, for Havas. Across his career,
he has led creative, media, data, technology, commerce, and marketing organizations from
nearly every side of the business — as a CMO inside the world’s largest retailer, a two-time
agency CEO, and a founder of technology start-ups.
That range gives Joe an uncommon view of what clients need now. He understands how great
ideas are made, how modern marketing systems actually work, how technology changes the
operating model, and how hard it can be for senior marketers to drive growth inside large,
complex companies.
Before joining Havas, Joe served as Interim CMO and then VP of Marketing at Sam’s Club, the
$93B+ membership retailer owned by Walmart. He led marketing through a period of major
transition, including leadership change, organizational redesign, and the modernization of a
200+ person team. During that time, marketing delivered significant year-over-year growth:
+49% in marketing-driven GMV, +15% in marketing-driven membership joins, and +17% in
visits. Just as importantly, he helped stabilize and strengthen the team during heavy change,
with significant gains in associate sentiment across trust, recognition, and belief in leadership.
Prior to Sam’s Club, Joe was U.S. CEO of Universal McCann, the 5,500-person, $6B global
media agency now part of Omnicom following its acquisition of IPG. Recruited during a period of
sustained decline, he led a full commercial and cultural reset. Under his leadership, the agency
delivered its first two consecutive years of growth in five years and won more than fifteen major
accounts, including GEICO and General Mills. During his tenure, UM was named Ad Age’s
“U.S. Media Agency of the Year” and Campaign’s “Global Media Network of the Year,” while also
earning more than a dozen “Best Places to Work” recognitions.
Joe’s leadership at Publicis Groupe’s Hawkeye nearly quadrupled the agency in under two
years, delivering 42 new business wins, 255% revenue growth, 160% operating income growth,
and CRM AOR duties for FedEx, AT&T, Capital One, Google, and USAA.
Earlier in his career, Joe held leadership roles at Saatchi, Razorfish, and Sapient, where he
helped build large-scale digital, commerce, and experience platforms for brands including T-
Mobile, Toyota, Lexus, Honda, and Acura.
Joe has also founded three companies, including one of the industry’s earliest AR/VR studios,
and two early SaaS platforms focused on mobile ticketing and virtual queuing. That
entrepreneurial experience remains central to how he leads: with a bias for building, testing,
simplifying, and moving.
Joe is a three-time “40 Under 40” honoree, a two-time “Agency of the Year” CEO, a 13-time
“Best Places to Work” CEO, a juror for the Cannes Lions U.S. Young Lions and the Effie
Awards, and a frequent speaker at CES, SXSW, and Cannes Lions. He is the author of two
forthcoming books on leadership and organizational reinvention: “The Baton,” about the next
generation of leaders, and “Refounders,” about how organizations thrive across generations of
leadership.