VMLY&R Strengthens Leadership Team Across Social, Media and Search

VMLY&R today has announced three senior promotions across the agency's connections department designed to deliver on the agency’s strategic growth priorities and further enhance its ability to connect key brands to audiences with purpose and results. The three roles are based across three of the agency’s major offices and report to VMLY&R chief global connections officer Amy Worley. 

“Liz, Jen, and Heather bring an unparalleled combination of talents and a deep-rooted passion for crafting cutting-edge solutions in collaboration with our creative, strategy and technology teams,” Worley said. “Their leadership prowess is matched only by their trailblazing spirit, as they champion the empowerment of other employees to chart their own paths within the industry. Their collective vision, expertise, and dedication will undoubtedly propel our agency forward, setting new standards for these capabilities at VMLY&R and across the industry.” 

Liz Cole has been promoted to chief social officer. Liz will be at the helm to shape the agency's highly recognized social capability, grow social business, and ensure VMLY&R continues to deliver excellence across clients’ current and future social needs. Since joining VMLY&R in 2021, Liz has made a tremendous impact on the calibre and consistency of the agency’s social offerings. She will continue leading strategy for brands along the spectrum of social activation - from those formalizing their approach for the first time to established social brands fine-tuning their effectiveness based on emerging insights in the space. Throughout her career, her work has driven relevance, reputation, and revenue for brands like Ford, Kraft Heinz, Diageo, lululemon, Kimberly-Clark, Whirlpool, Kellogg's, MillerCoors, and CDW. She remains based in Chicago. 

Jennifer Kohl has been promoted to chief media officer. Jennifer continues to lead VMLY&R’s media practice across North America. She brought together the VML and Y&R media teams to create an award-winning unified media capability for VMLY&R. Her responsibilities will include shaping VMLY&R’s US media capability as part of the agency’s integrated offering, growing media business, and delivering exceptional results for clients’ present and future media needs. 

Jennifer is well known in the industry for her leadership, expertise, and client relationships as well as her thought leadership and regular contributions to supporting working parents and the Asian community, both at VMLY&R and beyond. Her recent achievements include being name a She Runs It Working Mother of the Year, AdAge Women to Watch and NY Business Journal Women of Influence, and an induction into the YWCA Academy of Women Achievers. She was recently nominated to the IAB Video Board, is a freelance writer, and has taken her knowledge to the classroom at Mercy College, Baruch College, and Villanova University. Jennifer also is a recent graduate of the McKinsey Academy Asian Executive Leadership Program. She remains based in New York.   

Heather Physioc has been promoted to chief discoverability officer at VMLY&R. In her new role, Heather will continue to lead and grow the organic search, paid search, and performance content teams across North America and globally, serving more than 70 enterprise brands across verticals and around the globe. Heather has built an award-winning discoverability team, starting with one employee and growing to over 60 professionals. Her team has been recognised as Best Large Integrated Search Agency, Integrated Search Agency of the Year and International Search Team of the Year. Heather is also an international search industry speaker and writer, with specialized expertise in discoverability for complex, multinational, multilingual enterprise brands. 

Over the course of her career, she has consistently delivered value and overseen more than 200 client partnerships across a range of industries including, United Rentals, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Ford, Virgin Voyages, L’Oréal, and Wendy’s. Outside of the office, Heather is an adjunct professor of digital marketing at the University of Kansas School of Journalism master’s degree program and worked as a programming chair in the League of Women Voters curating a year-long speaker series about the electoral process and voting rights. She was named to the Kansas City Business Journal’s NextGen Leaders list in 2019 and remains based in the city.