Who We Are

Andrew Jaffe is a management consultant, marketer and advertising analyst with a long varied career centered on advertising and journalism in the U.S. and overseas.

Andrew is president of Compass Consulting, a Norwalk, Connecticut-based firm that helps advertisers locate agency partners for their brands and helps advertising agencies with business and creative issues. His book, "Casting for Big Ideas: A New Manifesto for Agency Managers," published by J. Wiley, lays out why many big agencies are slowly dying - – while many smaller firms are springing up to give advertisers the new kind of relevant messages they need to reach customers in today’s cluttered marketplace.

He limits his agency practice to a few clients who need help with major issues about positioning, ownership, new business development and growth, both here and overseas. He also has assisted brands with brand strategy, philanthropy strategy, agency reviews and compensation negotiations. In addition, he has conducted short offsite sessions for executives on a number of topics and is currently advising the VCU AdCenter in Richmond, Virginia on its development of an executive education program for the industry.

Before establishing Compass Consulting in 2003, Andrew was executive director of The Clio Awards, the international creative competition, and was a former editor of Adweek Magazine, a leading trade magazine covering the advertising industry. He also served as founding chairman of the board of the Miami Ad School and now serves on the Board of Directors of the VCU Ad Center, a premier school for training copywriters, art directors, strategic planners and brand managers. He also acted a consultant to the American Association of Advertising Agencies when it launched its own creative conference in 1996.

Prior to his becoming editor at Adweek Magazine, Andrew was Newsweek Magazine's Nairobi Bureau Chief for a decade covering the entire continent and returned to the US where he was bureau chief for the magazine in Florida.

He lives in New Canaan, Connecticut, with his wife, Eileen Ast, a well known corporate communications executive and their son Nicholas. In his spare time Andrew fly fishes with his grown son, Christopher, who is a senior executive at Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, California, tries out faux gourmet dishes on his family and occasionally travels on business and pleasure to distant climes. He is currently working on a new book about management principles for leading creative organizations and a novel about Africa.

Compass Consulting