After 18 years, JWT’s former VP, director of strategic planning is headed south of the border.

Jack Perone is moving to DDB Chicago as its new chief strategy officer, responsible for heading the planning department. He’ll report directly to the CEO of the Chicago office, Paul Gunning, and will lead all strategic planning – including analytics.

While at JWT, Perone worked with various clients, including Johnson & Johnson, Kit Kat and Grand Marnier. In his new role, he’ll work on all of DDB’s clients, which includes McDonald’s and Mars, says Gunning.

Gunning says they got the name from their head of account services, also a Canadian who had previously worked with Perone in the past.

“That being said, when we looked at who Jack was and what he’d been doing for the past 18 years, it was a no-brainer,” Gunning says. “What put it over the top was a shared view about how analytics can help us uncover those insights in service of tighter briefs.”

This is the second prominent Canadian agency exec to move to the Chicago DDB office. In late summer, former CCO of DDB Canada, Kevin Drew Davis, moved back to Chicago a year after taking the role up north.