In a move reflecting the marketing communications agency's strong growth in the U.S. and abroad over the past few years, Draft Chicago has united its account groups under one account services umbrella and is formally expanding its retail and promotion capabilities globally.

William Gorski, currently executive vice president and head of direct marketing at the agency, is being named chief account services officer. Tina Manikas, executive vice president and director of retail and promotions, has been named chief global retail & promotion marketing officer. Both report directly to Yvonne Furth, president and CEO of Draft Chicago.

"We entered 2006 with strong momentum built over the past three years," said Furth. "In addition to our growth as an agency, the continued increase of client spending across all of our disciplines and specialties are prompting these steps."

According to Furth, the agency has been a "one P&L" organization for quite some time. "Now, by consolidating our direct, promotion, retail, health and digital account teams under one account services offering, we can better work together with our clients to achieve the best-possible, media-neutral solutions, that further enable us to provide best-in-class efforts across the multiple disciplines in which we specialize. In addition, having one account services offering enables us to provide our own people with more consistent training and development opportunities," Furth said.

Primary objectives for Gorski in his new post will be to continue to develop new and incremental revenue for the agency, maintain and grow key accounts, add to the quality and consistency of Draft's work, and enhance operational efficiency.

"Bill's ultimate aim is to build a high performance account management organization," said Furth. "As always, developing top talent to continue to serve our clients remains a high priority."

Manikas, in her new role, will lead, strengthen, and expand retail and promotion business and services in the U.S. in addition to exporting her considerable expertise in this area across Draft's global network. With Draft's retail and promotions business having grown considerably over the past few years, which includes now handling the Nokia account on a worldwide basis, coupled with the growth opportunities inherent in other Draft clients, Manikas will expand and deepen thought leadership and new service offerings in these arenas. As she continues to oversee client business and expand business globally, she is also tasked with developing people and capabilities in all integrated aspects of retail-oriented brand marketing including the expansion of customer marketing, environmental branding and overall retail innovation.

"Tina's in-depth knowledge of retail and promotional marketing will now not only build on our efforts here but nurture and build our business and capabilities around the globe," said Furth. "As this arena continues to escalate in importance, we are proud to count one of its leading practitioners as our own and provide her well-seasoned expertise to our clients."

About William Gorski

Named executive vice president in 2003, Bill Gorski first joined Draft in 2002, as director of direct marketing. Serving as director of direct marketing at Draft Chicago since 2002, Gorski has been responsible for managing the direct marketing group, as well as overseeing account services, database and technology, and the digital marketing groups. Prior to Draft he worked for Digitas in Boston, where he served as vice president and director of integrated marketing. Among the accounts he worked on were Xerox and General Motors. Prior to Digitas, Gorski held positions at Fidelity Investments, Toyota Motor Sales USA and Ford Motor Company.

About Tina Manikas

Tina Manikas' career spans more than 20 years. Since she was appointed executive vice president/managing director for all promotional accounts in 1997, the agency's business in that area has more than tripled. Today she oversees all retail and promotion marketing business and has been responsible for the launch of Draft's customer marketing service offering. She leads teams which create integrated promotional and/or retail marketing solutions for the agency's blue-chip roster of accounts. During her career, Tina served as a key executive with Marketing Corporate of America and Lee Hill, Inc., which was acquired by Draft in 1997. Tina's years of experience managing clients spans a diverse roster which includes Masterfoods, Citibank, Kellogg, Nokia, Sprint, CVS/pharmacy and many others. She and her teams have won numerous industry accolades, including Edison, POPAI, PRO, Caples and Reggie awards.

About Draft

Founded in 1978, Draft has built a global, behavior-based, communications industry powerhouse that earned the highest rating (five out of five stars) in Advertising Age's 2005 Agency Review, and repeated that achievement in 2006. Draft's global network spans The Americas, Europe and Asia/Pacific. It is a valued marketing partner for such clients as CA, CVS/pharmacy, Hewlett-Packard, Kellogg, Procter & Gamble, United Airlines, United States Postal Service, and Verizon, among others.

In line with its unique global positioning - The Science Behind The Success® - Draft combines 28 years of consumer insights with its proprietary Behavior Path Marketing® process to create seamless marketing communications programs that deliver measurable results across all media. Its primary integrated services encompass direct, retail, promotions, and interactive marketing. Draft (www.draftworldwide.com) is a member of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG).