Janet Riccio, executive vice president of Omnicom Group Inc., visited campus Feb. 24 to speak to students about the advertising industry.
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| Janet Riccio (right) talked about the Omnicom Group and lessons she has learned during her February presentation.
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Riccio’s visit was hosted by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications (JMC). Riccio has a tie to Murray State — Robert J. Norsworthy, Executive-in-Residence in the Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business and the JMC department, was a colleague of Riccio’s when Norsworthy was at Diversified Agency Services, an Omnicom company.
Riccio’s story is one of those classic tales told so often — a start in the mailroom of a small advertising agency all the way to holding not one but two major positions at Omnicom Group, one of the largest advertising and marketing services holding companies in the world.
As executive vice president of Omnicom Group, Riccio is responsible for the global oversight of some of Omnicom’s most important clients. In this role, she fosters and facilitates multiple agency collaboration, intercedes on behalf of both agencies and clients to develop solutions to any ongoing partnership issues, and taps into Omnicom specialist agencies to bring ideas unique to their discipline to the clients.
As chief executive and founder of G23, a fully-owned subsidiary of Omnicom, Riccio has brought together the finest female minds in advertising and marketing services to focus solely on the discovery of insights into the female economy on behalf of their clients.
The process begins with a robust workout of the client’s brand — called a Female Fit™ session — to determine their preparedness for the female economy and a pathway towards its activation.
Over the course of Riccio’s 25-plus years in advertising, her collaborative business style has taken her to more than 30 countries on five continents on behalf of her clients and she has forged a deep appreciation of how relationships with consumers build brands all over the world.
She is active on the speaking and panelist circuit. Over the past year, she has spoken at the Brand 50 annual meeting, keynoted at The International Alliance of Women global conference and the Economic Club of Toronto, been on panels at both Harvard Business School and Kellogg Graduate School of Business, and moderated a panel at the annual conference of the Women’s World Banking Association.
Riccio and G23 have been featured in articles in the New York Times, The Toronto Globe and Mail business magazine and the Oxford University Saïd Business School magazine.
Riccio is a member of the executive committee on the board of directors of the Women’s Funding Network, an organization made up of 150-plus organizations that fund women’s solutions across the globe.
She is also a member of the board and chairperson of the Board Operations Committee of the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Metro New York.
