WPP'S Savatar Inc. Names Top Executives

Savatar Inc., a recently formed subsidiary of the WPP Group, added two senior marketing executives to its staff.

Lance D. Podell, who will manage the company’s recently established New York City office, was named Savatar’s vice president for client development/marketing. Savatar also said that John Macario will serve as vice president for business technology solutions and will be based in the company’s Boston headquarters.

Savatar is built on a business model that fuses four types of companies: an interactive agency, management consultancy, software developer, and systems integrator. Savatar is applying this model to its own clients as well as in partnership with sister WPP clients.

Projects include developing a Java-based intranet and tele-service system for AT&T, systems and applications engineering for the U.S. Air Force, designing a business partner interaction architecture for IBM, and creating a promotional, database-driven Web site for Aleve.

Podell will be responsible for new client development and the company’s account, media, and creative teams from its New York office. Podell worked on some of the earliest interactive marketing programs at Ogilvy & Mather Direct’s Interactive Marketing Group.

He joins Savatar from the Interactive Division of U S WEST, where he was part of the management team for the company’s DiveIn project, a Web-based local information service.

Macario will be managing Savatar’s business technology group that designs and develops systems for interactive marketing, tele-services, and database marketing efforts. He joins Savatar from Bronner, Slosberg, Humphrey, a Boston-based direct marketing company, where he worked extensively with its interactive subsidiary, the Strategic Interactive Group.