Suzanne Grimes was appointed president-chief operating officer of Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, effective January 1, 2013. Ms. Grimes previously served as president of the U.S. Lifestyle Communities group at Reader’s Digest Association, where she also led the Reader’s Digest business units in Canada and India. (AdAge)

AOL’s Advertising.com Group has hired B-to-B marketing veteran Allie Savarino Kline as its new chief marketing officer. Ms. Kline will join AOL early in the new year from 33Across, where she ran marketing for the social-data startup. The decision to hire Kline for this new role comes as AOL begins to treat its ad-tech business, content business, and legacy consumer-product business as three separate entities. (AdAge)

W2O will be acquiring VM Foundry, a 15-person digital agency in Austin, Texas. As part of the move, W2O is also launching W2O Digital, a center of excellence for the W2O companies. This is part of a larger commitment to using technology to make PR smarter and more effective. In addition to VM Foundry, W2o also acquired big-data firm Ravel earlier this year. (Blog)

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WCG, a firm focused on healthcare, corporate communications, crisis, and other areas, has created a new parent company and two new firms that will, together, provide integrated communications services to industries ranging from technology to automotive and consumer goods.

The new parent company is W2O and under its umbrella will be WCG; Twist, a comms firm with a foundation in insights and analytics; and W2O Ventures, an “incubational arm” focused on partnerships.

Over the years, the company has grown “exponentially” according to Jim Weiss, chairman and CEO of the WCG network, with the company experiencing a 41 percent compounded growth rate over the past 10 years and a 29 percent jump in revenue in 2011. Revenue for last year totaled $47.6 million.

Rather than add new practice areas to maximize on these results, the firm launched this new network, which will keep the operation from getting too big.

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