Logo

White Lee Sews Up Carat Chicago Post

Aug 13, 2008  •  Post A Comment

When opportunity knocks, it’s a wonderful thing.
Jennifer White Lee hoped one day she’d be running the Chicago office of GroupM’s Mediaedge:CIA. Instead, the office was closed last year and its business was moved to New York.
Ms. White moved to GroupM’s Mindshare, where she was senior partner and group planning director running the American Family Insurance business. One day she got a phone call from a headhunter she hadn’t heard from in years, telling her a position had opened running the Chicago office of Carat. Would she be interested?
“It was a nice call to get,” said Ms. White Lee, who jumped at the chance. “These opportunities don’t come up very often.”
Running an office would give her a chance to make a difference, and Carat offers a global media brand with deep resources to work with, she said, while at the same time seeming to be less bureaucratic than larger organizations.
She said she wanted to work somewhere more entrepreneurial, and “I just have a feeling that Carat’s a little more like that right now.”
“Jennifer brings tremendous cross-category experience that will benefit our clients and internal teams alike,” said Carat President Scott Sorokin.
Ms. White Lee, a confirmed Midwesterner, was born in Limerick, Ireland. Her parents brought her to the U.S. when she was 3 years old and she grew up in Waukegan, Ill. Since her father was in the airline business, the family had the opportunity to return to the old country many times when she was growing up, and she maintained strong connections with her relatives there. She said she still goes back every five years or so, and said this year she’s already had two waves of relatives from Ireland visit her in the U.S.
She went to college at Northern Illinois University, planning to be a journalist.
“I used to love to write, and I thought that would be what I’d do,” she said. Then she discovered media planning and advertising as part of the journalism school curriculum.
“I always had a very strong inclination toward math. I almost became an engineer. I also like writing, so I found media planning was quite the blend of both. There’s a lot of people in our industry that are very right- and left-brain balanced people,” she said.
She got her first job at Chicago agency Tatham-Laird & Kudner.
She recalled figuring she could afford to live on $12,000 a year. The agency offered $10,000.
“I said ‘fine,’ because a professor in school said, ‘Whatever they offer you, take it.’ You’ve got to get your foot in the door,” she said.
She started as a print coordinator, and moved up in the print group. She wanted to get into planning and told Phil Gerber, the head of the agency’s media department, that she’d work for free if she got the next planner opening. She got the post but kept getting paychecks.
She moved to CPM, an independent media buyer. After a decade, CPM was acquired by the British agency CIA in 1999, then merged with Mediaedge.
Ms. White Lee said she plays golf and tennis. She recently took up Pilates, which has changed her life by helping her building up strength in muscles she didn’t even use before.
She also enjoys sewing, creating home decorating items like pillows, cushions and tablecloths that adorn her home and her mother’s home. On Friday nights she plays Bunco at a women’s social club.
She and her husband, who is retired, throw a lot of parties at their suburban home. Upcoming is a bocce tournament her friends look forward to. They have a big backyard and it’s set up “for adults to play a lot of games they never get to play,” she says.
They have a shi-poo (a shih tzu-poodle mix) called Packer, as in Green Bay Packers.
“We live on Green Bay Road. My husband’s from Wisconsin. He’s a huge Packers fan and, of course, I’m a Bears fan,” she says.
Who Knew: Ms. White Lee taught disco dancing during her college days, and she and her brother would win dance contests at local bars. She grew up taking ballet, passing the first two levels of training to be a prima ballerina. “I think every girl want to be a ballerina, but not all of them took the level courses I did,” she said. Then she quit to take up the piano, which she still plays. As an adult, she’s taken a number of dance courses, including modern and jazz.

23 Comments

  1. I adore your website – great job!

  2. Excellent job.

  3. Excellent job.

  4. Well said, mostly, but don’t you feel you’re oversimplifying?

  5. I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply back as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know wheere u got this from. thanks

  6. Great blog!! You should start many more. I love all the info provided. I will stay tuned 🙂

  7. Kudos to you! This is a really good blog here and I love your style of writing. How did you get so good at blogging?

  8. Dreamin. I love blogging. You all express your feelings the right way, because they are your feeling, focus on your blog it is great.

  9. Amazing freakin blog here. I almost cried while reading it!

  10. Great blog!! You should start many more. I love all the info provided. I will stay tuned 🙂

  11. Great wordpress blog here.. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you! take care and see you soon

  12. Hey how are you doing? I just wanted to stop by and say that it’s been a pleasure reading your blog. I have bookmarked your website so that I can come back & read more in the future as well. plz do keep up the quality writing

  13. This is the best blog I’ve ever seen in my life! I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to share your this with everyone.

  14. Bizarre… I just found your blog by looking for ‘financial spreadbetting’ on Yahoo. But I haven’t found any posts about that subject on here?

  15. This is the best blog I’ve ever seen in my life! I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to share your this with everyone.

  16. I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply back as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know wheere u got this from. thanks

  17. Kind Regards,

  18. LDA – Chief Exec Monthly Store LTD

  19. Keep focusing on your blog. I love how we can all express our feelings. This is an extremely nice blog here 🙂

  20. I generally don’t respond on web sites except you boast various first-rate readable article.

  21. Can I just say what a elimination toward hit upon a big name who in reality understands what theyre talking about on the internet. You unquestionably know how to transport an concern to brightness plus make it important. Extra public require to read this plus appreciate this side of the narrative. I cant consider youre not more fashionable because you definitely have the gift.

  22. I really like the colors here on your blog. did you design this yourself or did you outsource it to a professional?

  23. You make blogging look like a walk in the park! I’ve been trying to blog daily but I just cant find writing material.. you’re an inspiration to me and i’m sure many others!

Leave a Reply to Phoenix Web Design Cancel Reply

Email (will not be published)