sparks & honey Appoints Camilo La Cruz as First Chief Innovation Officer

Today, sparks & honey, Omnicom’s cultural strategy consultancy, announced the appointment of its first-ever chief innovation officer, elevating Camilo La Cruz to fill the new role. Most recently serving as chief strategy officer, Camilo has played an integral part in architecting consulting services and technologies that place culture at the core of clients’ business strategies.

In this new role, Camilo will focus on developing new products and services that will directly serve its progressive client base as well as further integrating its cultural intelligence platform, Q into Omni, Omnicom’s proprietary precision marketing and insights platform. 

“My goal is to design products that serve the needs of the changemaker CMOs and executives leading the organisations we partner with. The market is evolving fast alongside new channels, technologies, behaviours, and amid a great deal of uncertainty in this post-normal world of 2023; CMOs are under pressure to keep up, place bold bets, and show value, and that is where we come in,” said Camilo. “Our technology, expert advisory board, and extended suite of capabilities available across Omnicom gives us the perfect foundation to envision, test, and scale new products and services, I’m beyond excited to dig in.”

As one of its first employees, Camilo has shaped sparks & honey’s vision and unique offering since they opened their doors in 2012, creating an industry around cultural intelligence and strategy to deliver a unique competitive advantage. “In this role, Camilo will continue to drive our industry forward with first-to-market offerings that intersect our tech and consulting practices with new tools like generative AI – driving impact for business leaders trying to stay ahead of the market.” said Terry Young, CEO and founder of sparks & honey.

“Having worked with Camilo for many years, there is no one that I trust more than him to help me understand where the market is moving and how to guide my organisation, " said Paul Butler, president and chief transformation officer, New America.

Over the last decade, Camilo has collaborated with the Fortune 500 but also think tanks, universities, and government organisations, including the World Economic Forum, Georgetown University, Rand Corporation, and DARPA on a range of innovation initiatives spanning gender and intergenerational dynamics, future of work and automation, and the disruption of radicalisation journeys in social networks. He is a frequent speaker and contributor on these topics and others, appearing on stage at Aspen Institute Intrapreneur’s Program, SXSW, AdColor, Fast Company’s Innovation Festival and served on the Creative Data jury at Cannes Lions. 

He will continue to report to CEO and founder Terry Young.