Advertising Age spotlighted ANA CEO Bob Liodice, who will step down from his role at
the end of 2026, prompting the search for a successor.
The ANA
declared, “The next CEO will build on ANA’s scale and influence while advancing
its role as the industry’s guide through the most significant shift in modern
marketing—where artificial intelligence is reshaping how value is created,
measured and sustained.”
Sounds like a
perfect opportunity to innovate toward the inevitable.
That is,
replace Liodice with an AI platform.
It’ll even offer
nice alliteration and decent logo potential: ANA AI
ANA CEO Bob
Liodice to step down
By E.J. Schultz
Bob Liodice
will step down as CEO of the Association of National Advertisers at the end of
the year, ending a more than two-decade run as leader of the nation’s largest
marketing industry trade group.
The ANA has
hired a search firm to find a new CEO. The organization declined to name the
firm but confirmed the process will be overseen by ANA board chairman Dean
Aragón, who is CEO and vice chair of Shell Brands International, and Procter
& Gamble Co. Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard, the prior ANA chair.
“The next CEO
will build on ANA’s scale and influence while advancing its role as the
industry’s guide through the most significant shift in modern marketing—where
artificial intelligence is reshaping how value is created, measured and
sustained,” the ANA shared in a statement.
Liodice, 70,
has been with the ANA for 31 years, serving as CEO since 2003. ANA credited him
with growing the organization’s membership from 188 companies to more than
1,600, representing over 20,000 brands and 50,000 marketing professionals
worldwide.
In an
interview, Liodice pointed to recent work done to restructure the ANA into what
he described as eight “mini associations” spanning specialty areas: brand,
media, data, technology, measurement, talent, inclusive marketing and
business-to-business marketing. “Each of these business teams are now focused
in on what we consider to be the primary drivers of growth for our unique
members,” he said.
With the
reorganization complete, it is time “to turn over the ANA to the next
generation of leadership, whoever that leader is, whether they be sourced
internally, but most probably externally,” he added.
Fixing a
‘broken organization’
Liodice, who
earlier in his career held marketing and sales roles at Grupo Televisa and
Kraft General Foods, joined the ANA in 1995 as a senior VP. He stepped into the
CEO role eight years later, succeeding John Sarsen. It was a tumultuous time,
as ANA dealt with financial challenges, as well as criticism for letting media
sponsors program its flagship conference that often resulted in thinly veiled
sales pitches from the stage, Ad Age reported at the time.
“We stopped
that,” Liodice recalled this week. “It was distasteful to many of our brand
marketers.”
The ANA at the
time was “somewhat of a broken organization,” he said. “We were a hairbreadth
away from being out of business,” he added, recalling that when he took over in
January 2003, the ANA had $28,000 in the bank and was “nearly bankrupt.”
The ANA, which
is a tax-exempt nonprofit, reported $80.4 million in revenue for 2024, up from
$65.6 million in 2023, according to its latest tax filings. Expenses grew to
$82.2 million from $64.3 million. Liodice’s compensation was listed as $1.5
million as of the 2024 filing. The ANA employs about 200 full-time employees
today, according to a representative.
Liodice said
the group’s recent jump in expenses was partially due to costs related to its
recent formation of Aquila, an ANA-backed cross-platform media measurement
venture designed to help marketers reduce wasteful media spending by
eliminating excess frequency.
Dealing with
agency tensions
Improving the
media supply chain for brands has been among Liodice’s key priorities. The ANA
drew widespread attention in 2016 when it published a report prepared by
investigative firm K2 alleging that media agencies were benefiting from
non-transparent practices, including collecting cash rebates for media deals
not disclosed to advertisers. While specific agency names were not listed, the
report still drew complaints from agency players, including agency trade
organization 4As, which at the time accused the ANA of taking a “one-sided”
approach.
It was an
example of how the ANA and 4As over the years have vacillated between being
allies and opponents, depending on the issue.
Liodice, in
this week’s interview, said the K2 report came at a “very challenging time.”
“Relationships
were, in fact, damaged at that stage,” he said. But he suggested that tensions
eased after Marla Kaplowitz took over as 4As president-CEO in 2017, succeeding
Nancy Hill. “She and I got along famously, and we made it our joint commitment
to repair whatever damage and work harmoniously together,” Liodice said.
Kaplowitz
departed 4As in 2025 and was succeeded by Justin Thomas-Copeland.
Growing ANA
membership and dealing with rising event competition
The ANA’s
membership growth during Liodice’s tenure in part stemmed from the acquisition
of five industry associations: Brand Activation Association, Business Marketing
Association, Advertising Educational Foundation, Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Association and the Data and Marketing Association. Those acquisitions are
helping fuel attendance at the more than 60 conferences the ANA puts on each
year, including its flagship Masters of Marketing conference held in Orlando
every fall, which drew about 2,500 attendees in 2025.
But the ANA has
had to deal with rising competition from newer events put on by other marketing
and media organizations. That includes the Possible conference, held in the
spring in Miami Beach, which last year drew 5,400 attendees (albeit with some
complaints about top executives being secluded behind closed doors).
“We honestly
feel like we don’t compete against Possible,” Liodice said. He suggested the
ANA’s differentiation from that and other events is its singular focus on brand
marketers. Its global CMO Growth Council, for example, “continues to expand and
has about 500 active CMOs,” he said.
Aragón, in a
statement, credited Liodice for expanding the ANA’s influence and playing a
“central role in advancing the standards and practices that define modern
marketing.”
As he steps
away, Liodice said he is looking forward to getting “a little more balance in
my life.” He estimated that he has been traveling 15 to 20 weeks each year,
including this week, when he attended the ANA’s Masters of Data conference in
San Diego.
Bob’s final
message to CMOs
On stage,
Liodice is known for asking presenters what message audience members should
take back to the office with them on Mondays. Ad Age turned the tables on him,
asking him for his final piece of advice for chief marketing officers:
“Drink in as much as you can drink in— and to
let your common sense prevail,” he said. “We lose sight of the value of common
sense and try to sometimes get overly prescriptive in making decisions. But I
do believe a CMO has achieved that stature because of their not only their
integrity and their ethics, but their ability to navigate these complexities
with incredible common sense and decision making that has been honed over the
years.”
