New from PRWeek this morning: Virgo Health has promoted Michael Platt to be the first MD of the Interpublic Group agency’s New York office. Platt had been an executive director at the firm. He reports to Virgo’s global president Neera Chaudhary, who is also global president of Golin Healthcare. Read the full story here.
Kaiser Permanente chairman and CEO Bernard Tyson died unexpectedly on Sunday at age 60. Tyson, who became the company's first black CEO in 2013, was a champion for accessible healthcare, racial justice and workplace diversity. During his tenure at Kaiser, the company’s workforce grew from 174,000 to 218,000 people, and its annual revenue rose from $53 billion to nearly $83 billion. Kathryn Beiser, SVP and CCO at Kaiser, tweeted Sunday evening, "All of us @aboutKP are mourning the loss of our incredible CEO. He inspired me every day. I will miss him deeply." EVP and group president Gregory Adams has been named as interim chairman and CEO.
Is Apple’s credit card sexist? After tech entrepreneur David Heinmeier Hansson tweeted that Apple Card offered him 20-times the credit limit as his wife, although they have shared assets and she has a higher credit score, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak and others voiced similar complaints. The New York State Department of Financial Services is now investigating the card, which is issued by Goldman Sachs. "In all cases, we have not and will not make decisions based on factors like gender," said a statement from the banking giant’s spokesperson Andrew Williams.
Singles Day success. Alibaba set a new sales record on Singles Day, an annual marketing event that is the world's busiest online shopping day. The Chinese e-commerce giant, which kicked off the event Sunday night with a concert by Taylor Swift at a Shanghai stadium, said sales by merchants on its platforms totaled $31.7 billion, passing last year's total of $30.8 billion. JD.com, meanwhile, reported sales of $25.6 billion, according to media reports.
Ex-McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook also dated a Golin exec. Easterbrook, who was fired earlier this month over a consensual relationship with a female staffer, also had a relationship several years ago with Denise Paleothodoros, an executive director at Golin. Paleothodoros, who led Golin’s relationship with McDonald’s for about five and a half years, dated Easterbrook for two years. At the time, the board signed off on the relationship and Paleothodoros was removed from the McDonald’s account, according to The Wall Street Journal. From 1956 until last year, McDonald’s had principally worked with Golin. McDonald’s now works with three agency partners, Golin, WE, and Purple Strategies, each focused on a specific area of storytelling.
