Giant Spoon Elevates First-Ever Chief Transformation Officer
Independent, integrated agency Giant Spoon is expanding its leadership team and core offerings by adding Corbin Brown as chief transformation officer.
As CTO, Corbin will provide solutions for clients facing business challenges beyond advertising, including evolving a brand's market positioning, integrating new technologies (e.g. AI), expanding partnerships, rethinking potential customers and addressable markets, and creating, launching, and managing new products and brands. Reporting to Jonathan Haber, cofounder of Giant Spoon, Corbin will assemble custom teams across departments from the agency, bringing in talent to solve complex problems for clients that intersect marketing and business.
Corbin most recently oversaw the agency’s strategy efforts, including the award-winning rebrand, digital transformation, and management of Departures, the travel and lifestyle media brand owned by American Express. As the company’s first-ever hire in 2014, Corbin has led partnerships with brands like YETI, Biden for President 2020, Synchrony, and GE, where he was part of the team that launched several historic campaigns, including an integrated, global campaign to mark the culmination of GE’s multi-year transformation as three independent, publicly traded companies; a complete ad takeover in the New York Times print edition — a first in the paper’s 171-year-old history; the first branded podcast to reach #1 on Apple Podcasts; and GE “Fallonventions,” the multi-season hit brand integration on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Within the industry, Corbin has received numerous honours including Business Insider’s 35 Under 35 and Cynopsis Rising Star, and routinely serves as a judge for the esteemed, global effectiveness in marketing show, the Effie Awards.
Elevating Corbin into the newly-formed role comes as Giant Spoon experiences significant momentum in the market, including its investment in Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, which is led by Giant Spoon partner and CEO & founder Laura Correnti. The news follows new business wins with clients across a wide variety of industries, including AT&T, Ritual Vitamins and TIAA, as well as a global campaign ushering in GE’s transition into three independent, publicly traded companies (GE Aerospace, GE Vernova and GE HealthCare) in “Once, Now, Forever” – which also marked the first time two companies have simultaneously launched on the NYSE.
Adding a chief transformation officer empowers Giant Spoon to anticipate and adopt evolved services that come with the pace of change in the industry, as brands adjust how they tap into agency talent. Creating a transformation officer function also fuels the agency to advance its own business, developing modern scopes, dynamics, and ways of working.
“Adding a chief transformation officer elevates something we’ve done for years,” said Jonathan Haber, cofounder of Giant Spoon. “We exist to expand the way people experience brands – and we’re at our best when we’re employing big thinking to help influence transformational change for our clients’ businesses. From day one, Corbin has proven himself a dynamic, strategic, creative leader who fearlessly tackles business challenges for clients with a fresh approach and holistic thinking. He’s the perfect fit for the job, and we’re excited to see him start this new chapter.”
"Brand and business transformation is an organic evolution of what we’ve been doing since the day I started over a decade ago,” said Corbin Brown, chief transformation officer. “The Giant Spoon way of thinking has provoked bigger, more existential questions for our clients – about their brand strategy, their understanding of the customer, their business model and product roadmap – and led us to some of our most impactful work as an agency. When we can support our clients at the place where brand and business intersect, and by bringing the customer – people – into the process to inform every strategic choice, that’s transformational impact. I look forward to helping the agency do more of that work.”
