Huge Lays Off More Staff and Reorganizes Its Management Structure

Digital agency Huge has made more layoffs of its global staff and has reorganized its executive team while bringing in a new global client president. In an internal memo obtained by Adweek, CEO Mat Baxter—who came on as Huge’s fifth CEO in four years in 2021—stated that, due to ongoing economic challenges and changes in what clients need, Huge is “taking bold steps to transform what we offer and how we work so that we deliver more value for our clients and can build a more sustainable, successful business.” Baxter’s ongoing transformation story at Huge was recently chronicled in a book by author and industry insider Michael Farmer, Madison Avenue Makeover, which laid out Baxter’s methods and efforts. As a result of the recent changes in the industry, the agency needed to say “goodbye to some of our colleagues,” Baxter’s memo confirmed. Huge Lays Off 37—About 3% of Its Workforce The memo did not state how many people were impacted, nor which offices and accounts were affected, and Huge did not disclose any details of the layoffs nor its realignment. The memo did say that those laid off would be provided with career services, immigration support, Huge-issued laptops and generous benefits packages to ease their transitions if needed. A spokesperson for Huge told Adweek: “While it is always a difficult decision to part ways with valued team members, a realignment of our workforce was a necessary step in achieving our long-term strategy of evolving into a creative consultancy powered by new capabilities and technologies.” The layoffs come after a previous round of layoffs at Huge in July of 2022, which affected roughly 3% of the agency. There were also layoffs at the IPG agency in 2020 due to the pandemic. Adding new executives and changing pods Baxter’s memo also stated that there would be changes in the organization of the agency, assembling the best teams and having the ability to move faster and collaborate better. To do that, it is merging its “Client Pods,” otherwise known as CPs. The idea of the CPs, which were laid out in Madison Avenue Makeover, showed that the pod structure was meant to be collaborative and bring together groups of individuals from different disciplines to bring better outcomes for clients. Now, some of the pods are being merged under different managers. One CP (CP72) will fall under the leadership of new global client president, Katie Klumper, who joins from IPG’s consulting business, Black Glass. Klumper is the founder and CEO of Black Glass and Huge told Adweek that she will retain her position at Black Glass while leading the newly merged pod at Huge. Klumper will lead CP72 while global client president Megan Malli will lead CP5. Farmer's book explains the scope of the three client pods being merged as CP05 is "clients and staff from Huge's legacy London, Toronto, and Midwestern US (Chicago and Detroit) offices"; CP10 is "clients from "the legacy Southeast (DC and Atlanta) and West (Oakland and LA) regions"; and CP72 "pulls together clients from Huge's legacy Brooklyn office." Jon Judah, formerly global client president of CP10, now becomes Huge’s chief strategy officer, while Blake Wirth will continue to lead CP99, which according to the book is "made up entirely of engagements for a large, single global client." A source tells Adweek that client is Google. Matt Weiss will continue as a global client president and a leader at Huge, focused on client growth and development across the organization. In addition, Huge has made managing director of global talent, Adrienne Imbriaco, the agency’s chief talent officer. She has been a part of the agency's talent team for nearly four years. Baxter stated in the memo that Huge is committed to becoming a “more consultative, data-powered partner delivering our products and always helping our clients drive growth through creativity.” To that end, he said the remaining staff will get to know more products, including Creative Capital Index and Huge Live. The agency said that all of its transformation efforts are focused on ensuring that Huge is a more agile organization that can move faster, collaborate better, assemble the best teams and deliver the best work. The agency made recent steps to add more technology. In June, after what a release stated as an “extensive 18-month reimagination of the company, its capabilities and its products,” Huge moved from a digital design agency to a creative consultancy that will use new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to help clients with growth. “As a company that built its reputation on helping brands navigate the digital era, we recognize that AI has potential far greater than mobile, and even greater than the internet,” said Baxter in a statement in the release, adding that the changes at the agency empowers it to be a “trailblazer for AI-powered creativity throughout the industry.”