Promoting Those Who Have Been Promoted

I recently bragged on my wife when she was invited to join the Durham Literacy Center's Board of Directors. This time I'll let the managing director of Ogilvy's Washington, D.C. office do the bragging for me.

Here's the email the managing director sent out this week about promotions at Ogilvy including Erica's well-deserved (and frankly, overdue) appointment to the position of account director.

It is with great happiness and no small amount of pride that I announce the promotions of 14 Ogilvy people who have demonstrated - proven - their ability to step up to the next level of responsibility and leadership within our office and agency. Promotions are serious and demonstrate a serious commitment on behalf of both the promotee and the organization. These folks have earned their ascension and our congratulations. Please take a moment to give it to them.

...

Erica Taylor - Promotion to Account Director

Erica works on three major accounts (NHLBI, NCI, and CDC Hepatitis) in Social Marketing and has distinguished herself in all three. She is an extremely hard worker and also an efficient one. She is able to synthesize some of the most complex issues and ideas to their core and then reflect back just the essentials that need to be addressed. This is particularly evident when she researches a topic and then writes about it - whether for colleagues, a client memo or a white paper. She has a great relationship with all of her clients and is respected, counted on and appreciated by even the most demanding among them. Erica has also shown a commitment to new business and recently was part of the team that worked around the clock to complete the rebid for CDC Hepatitis.

Erica has dealt with some unfair circumstances since she started working from home, and she's handled those frustrations with patience and great professionalism. I'm thrilled and very proud that she's now receiving the recognition she deserves.

In other Taylor job news, my brother Pete has been promoted to supervisor of secondary language arts for Baltimore County Public Schools. It became official on Wednesday.

Pete taught English in Japan for two years after graduating from Loyola College and has been teaching in Baltimore County ever since returning home. During that time Pete passed up a very attractive job opportunity in New York City with the Japanese television network NHK.

He was waiting patiently (okay, he's been mostly patient with occasional bouts of impatience) for an opportunity to work as an assistant principal when the language arts opportunity came his way. He had not known about the position until he was contacted and strongly encouraged to apply.

Congratulations, Erica and Pete!