Monica Karo
CEO
OMD USA

Monica Karo is CEO of OMD USA, the largest and most awarded media strategy and buying agency in the world. OMD is a unit of the largest marketing services holding company, OMNICOM.

Monica is one of Omnicom Media Group’s most experienced executives, having led some of OMD’s highest profile clients in the US and globally, including Apple, Disney, Visa, Nissan, Pepsico, GE, Hilton. She also serves on the Global Board of Directors for Omnicom Media Group (OMG).

Monica previously served as CEO of PHD, a sister company to OMD and prior to that she ran OMD West where she managed the offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, and oversaw major clients such as CBS, The CW Network, Sony PlayStation, Clorox, Levis and others.

These accomplishments led to her being named “Executive of the Year” by Adweek Magazine in April of this year. Earlier in her career she was named a Media Maven by AdAge magazine and “Leader of the Year" by the Los Angeles Advertising Association, the first time it had been awarded to a media executive.

Monica serves on the Los Angeles Board of Governors of The Paley Center for Media, and has been a board member for PS ARTS and the California chapter of Partnership for a Drug Free America.  She is currently serving as Corporate Chairperson for the National Kidney Organization’s Los Angeles Fundraising Walk, which will take place on November 2, 2014.

She is an accomplished marathon runner and lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband and two children  — son Matt, who just graduated from Harvard Westlake and is a Freshman at The Fu School of Engineering at Columbia University (and playing baseball); and daughter, Marissa, who is a junior at Harvard-Westlake.