It seems like Luca Lindner‘s quickly climbing up the charts at McCann Worldgroup. Just four months after the IPG network appointed the president of the Middle Eastern, Latin American and African regions as co-prez of its Global Brands community, Lindner will now assume the new title of McCann Worldgroup, Americas, which we’ve been told is a new position.

As a result, Lindner’s handing over the African and Middle East reins to his Global Brands cohort Gustavo Martinez, who currently serves as president of McCann Worldgroup Europe. Lindner, who will continue to co-lead Global Brands, has been with McCann Worldgroup for nearly eight years, initially joining as regional director for Latin America/Caribbean in 2005. Prior to McCann, Lindner served as vice-chairman of Leo Burnett Europe and had stints at TBWA’s Paris and Rome offices early on in his career.

Sources familiar with the matter confirm that after spending nearly two years as EVP/managing partner at McCann New York, Matt Donovan has moved cross-country to Seattle. For what, you ask? Well, from what we’ve been told by those in the know, Donovan is joining up with a little company called Microsoft. Spies are adding that the exec’s new role at the Redmond, WA giant is global general manager position on Microsoft Windows Phone, though we’re still getting confirmation on that.

Donovan joined McCann in fall 2010 from Euro RSCG, where he held a few positions over a four-year span including chief strategy officer for Euro RSCG Asia-Pacific followed by CSO for Euro 4AD North America. We’ve been told it was an “amicable” split between McCann and Donovan, whose departure comes just a few months after Thom Gruhler left said agency for a VP of marketing post at Microsoft on Windows Phone. Hmm, coincidence or are we noticing a trend here? As for a Donovan successor at McCann, sources familiar say that his responsibilities are being redistributed and there are no plans to hire a director replacement.

After three-and-a-half years as SVP, business development at Grey New York, Alex Lubar is moving to McCann to serve as chief marketing officer of North American operations. We’ve obtained a memo sent from Grey NY managing director Michael Houston to staff within the last hour. It’s an interesting read, we must say. Prior to joining Grey, Lubar worked on the account side at the likes of BBH, the Ad Store and what’s now RAPP. Anyhow, peep Houston’s memo, which carries the subject “All is Fair in Love and War,” after the jump. Update: McCann finally made it official, saying Lubar will join the agency effective July 9 and will still be based in New York.

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We’ve been hearing from tipsters all afternoon and just received confirmation from McCann that the agency network’s New York and London creative chairman, Linus Karlsson (pictured), has been officially named CCO for global brands. Karlsson was hired by McCann 15 months ago from Mother NY.

According to a statement from McCann, “Karlsson will focus on the network’s global clients, including his creative leadership role in Commonwealth, the joint venture created to manage Chevrolet globally. Karlsson will maintain his title as Chairman of McCann New York and London.”

Of course, Karlsson’s expanded global responsibility has left a bit of a hole in McCann’s New York office. The agency is filling it by promoting Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy, previously co-ECDs for McCann’s Verizon business, to NY co-CCOs.

And, in case these weren’t enough promotions/position changes for you, we should also mention that Andreas Dahlqvist, a member of McCann’s global leadership collective, will work with Karlsson as deputy global CCO. Dahlqvist will also be maintaining his current role as vice chairman of McCann NY. Now, who wants to make a colorful infographic of all this?

Now that we’ve covered a couple of WPP units in Grey and JWT, let’s move on to another holding company, shall we? In this episode of “Cubes,” we tour the worldwide headquarters of IPG Mediabrands, the media holding company responsible for $34 billion in global revenue from advertising agencies such as Universal McCann. IPG’s work includes the Geico Gecko and Volkswagen’s pint-sized Darth Vader.

The IPG headquarters is home to a cutting-edge media lab full of Minority Report-esque marketing technology, and the office includes a high-tech workspace dubbed “the desk of the future” and a skyway stretching over 32nd Street that was once used by the Gimbels department story, the building’s previous tenant.

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Seven-year McCann vet Chavo D’Emilio has been bumped up to general creative director at the IPG-owned network’s Buenos Aires branch, which works with clients including GM, L’Oreal, MasterCard, Nestlé, Camel, Bimbo, Google and Cadbury. In addition to his regional duties, D’Emilio will continue playing a role with McCann’s World Creative Council. Prior to his new position, the senior creative spent the last four years as president of McCann’s TAG unit in Buenos Aires as well as creative director of McCann Miami. Before joining said agency, D’Emilio served as general creative director at Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, which of course gave us gems including the “Andes Teletransporter” in the ensuing years.

It sure didn’t take long for McCann Erickson to welcome Mike Parker to the fold. Just days after splitting from Tribal DDB San Francisco, the exec is officially taking on the role of chief digital innovation officer. Parker, who continues to work out of the Bay Area, will serve McCann’s North American operations in his new post. Regarding Parker, Hank Summy, McCann North America president, says in a statement, “His charge is to build specialist digital capabilities and talent into the very core of McCann, so that digital story-telling is integrated into everything we do, woven into the creation and execution of all brand ideas, and is an integral part of our environment.”

Along with Parker’s arrival as well as that of TBWA\Chiat\Day alum Jeremy Miller‘s, McCann has also brought on Thompson Reuters alum Alex Spinelli to serve as chief technology officer of Worldgroup.

Well, this pretty much flew under the radar but James Heughens recently left Organic Detroit after five years to take on the post of global client service director at McCann’s Motor City branch. From what we we’ve been told, Heughens (pictured) is working on the Chevy account, which of course is now being split in Detroit between McCann and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

During his five years at Organic, Heughens moved up from executive director of project management to SVP/general manager of the Omnicom agency’s Detroit and Chicago offices. Prior to Organic, Heughens spent nearly a decade at Sapient. His replacement at Organic, meanwhile, is seven-year vet Joe DiMeglio.

While we’re on the Organic tip, sources familiar with the matter tell us that the agency’s San Francisco office cut four non-billable staffers last Friday. So, there’s that.

Update: The McCann camp clarifies that Heughens is serving as global client service director of production operations for Commonwealth, which is the joint venture between Goodby and McCann that is focused on Chevy. So…pretty much what we said already.

Now that McCann’s added some swagger to its step following its GM co-win, the agency’s New York office as now welcomed Lynn Teo in the newly created post of chief experience officer. Teo, who has spent the last 18 months or so as head of user experience at AKQA, will lead McCann’s first-ever Experience Design department and will report to McCann Erickson North America president Hank Summy.

Prior to her gig at AKQA, Teo held dual roles at SapientNitro, directing teams in New York and London as creative director/director of experience design.

Sources familiar with the matter confirm that EVP/ECD Craig Markus and senior creative director Shalom Auslander (pictured) have resigned from McCann Erickson. The pair worked together at the agency for nearly a decade across a variety of accounts ranging from USA Today to packaged goods to Kohl’s (including the campaign starring J-Lo last year).

Markus, who has been with McCann for nearly 12 years and helped found the TAG Ideation unit during his tenure, will remain with the agency for another month or so to finish up work. Auslander, if you haven’t heard, has parlayed his agency copywriting career into becoming a full-time author, as he just released his debut novel, Hope: A Tragedy, earlier this year (check out a trailer Auslander created for his book here). No word yet, though, on whether either creative is heading to another agency, together or separately. We’ve been told their departure from McCann is “amicable.”